Harry Potter: And the Choice of Slytherin
by DaemonSol
Summary: A not so simple alternate telling, where Harry Potter becomes a Slytherin instead of a Gryffindor. Much amusement and angst will follow. Cover Image commissioned from Myuto Eve, visit her patreon at /MyutoEve/
1. Chapter 1: A New Destiny

July 30, 1991 (11:50 pm)  
The Sea  
Hut-on-the-Rock  
The Floor

Harry Potter had tried to find the softest piece of floor to sleep on, after his Uncle Vernon went borderline crazy in his attempt to flee the mysterious letters. Harry was fairly sure he'd found the softest bit of floor, but it was still the floor, so Harry found himself unable to fall asleep. He was currently passing the time by watching the time, literally tick away on Dudley watch, which was on his limply hanging wrist. In just under ten minute's time, Harry would be 11 years old. Now, Harry was used to his birthdays being...well...bad. He couldn't recall ever having a good one, but by his reckoning, this was probably the worst one yet.

Over the past week, letters had been trying to get themselves into Harry's hands. Harry knew his mistake had been on the first day, not reading the letters in the hallway right away. If he'd done so, he would have known what all this was about before Vernon could stop him. As it was, Vernon was on a crusade to keep Harry from knowing whatever this mysterious business was about. It was sparking a relatively unused emotion in Harry. Anger.

Over the past ten years, Harry had gotten used to being miserable. It had seemed to simply be his lot in life. Living with people who treated him like he was unnatural. Treated like he was a freak. He had no friends, because of Dudley and his gang, and so he knew little of love, happiness, or fun. But because that was his life, he'd grown used to it. He was familiar with being miserable. But this...denial...was causing Harry to feel angry. Stupid Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were trying their damnedest to keep Harry from learning the big secret, which Harry felt he was entitled to. Deep within the young boy, he knew that whatever was in that letter was going to be the source of a huge change in his life. He had no idea how or what, but he just knew that it was going to be major.

But the damned Dursleys hated change, more they hated anything that might make Harry happy. All the more reason to want the letter, since they seem to hate it so much.

Harry felt himself making a resolution. Ten years was enough. He didn't know how, but he wasn't going to let the Dursleys oppress him anymore. He glanced at the watch again. 11:59. A minute to go, and he'd be eleven. With a grim nod, Harry decided to start making things change.

Thirty seconds.

Twenty seconds.

Ten. Nine. ( _might wake up Dudley, just to annoy him_ ) Eight. Seven. Six. Five. ( _What's that thumping noise, is it coming from outside_?) Four. Three. Two. One.

 **BOOM!**

The whole shack shook, quivering weakly as something huge outside was knocking to come in, wanting to bring with it change.

* * *

Harry and Dudley sat up at the same time, with Dudley blandly muttering, "Where's the cannon?"

It was understandable considering the sound coming from the door. Turning, Harry spotted Vernon come skidding into the room, wielding a rifle ( _so that what was in that package_ )

"Who's there?!" Vernon shouted at the door, from which another resounding **BOOM** came from, "I warn you-I'm armed!"

A palpable pause filled the room for a moment, time seeming to stretch briefly until a huge **SMASH** caused the door to fall over. And in stepped the man who would bring the biggest change to young Harry's life. Starting him on a destiny filled with wonder and magic, joy and despair, danger and excitement, though young Harry didn't know this yet. But he felt it, he felt it in his Soul that so much was waiting on him.

The giant of a man squeezed his way in. He had a wild appearance, a huge scraggly mane of hair and a tangled mess of a beard. Eyes, glinting like black beetles peered out from all that hair, taking in the two adults and the two kids. With the smallest chuckle, the man turned, lifting the door and easily putting it back into the frame. He then turned back to the people he'd intruded on. He briefly seemed to think something over, and apparently decided to start with a joke, perhaps to lighten things up.

"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey..."

He stepped over to the sofa that Dudley had slept on. He made a "move over" motion as he said, "Budge up, yeh great lump!"

Dudley squeaked as he ran to hide behind his parents, while the giant turned his attention to the other child. "An' here's Harry!" He said, smiling happily, his dark eyes twinkling fondly. As he looked into those eyes, Harry felt a strong sense of familiarity.

"I...I've met you before." The boy whispered, drawing a good chuckle from the man.

"Aye, but Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby. Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yet mom's eyes."

Vernon decided this was a good moment to interrupt, before the giant and Harry could do much more bonding. "I demand you leave at once, sir! You are breaking and entering!"

"Ah shut up Dursley yeh great prune!" Hagrid laughed as he reached back over the sofa, yanking the gun out of Vernon's hands and turning it into a pretzel like it was made of paper and then tossing it aside. Harry took great amusement in the sound Vernon made, like a mouse who'd just realized he was poking a lion. "Anyway - Harry," Said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "A very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here - I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right."

He pulled a box from his coat and handed it to Harry. To his immense surprise, it was a slightly squashed chocolate cake with "Happy Birthday Harry" written in green icing. The young boy felt tears welling up in his eyes. It was the first time he'd gotten a legitimate birthday cake in his life. He looked up at the giant, eyes wet, emotions and questions burning inside him. There were so many things he wanted to ask but all that he could get to come out, in a slightly cracked voice was, "Who are you?"

The man chuckled slightly, but he was a little surprised by the emotion coming from young Harry. It was almost as if he'd never gotten anything for his birthday before. "True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts." The giant held out an enormous hand, and ended up shaking Harry's whole arm. "What about that tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."

Hagrid then quickly started setting things up for himself. He went over to the empty grate and did...something that started a lovely fire. He then pulled out a variety of things from his pockets, including sausages, a poker, a teapot and kettle, some mugs, and some amber liquid that he took a swig from. In short time, the sausages were cooking on the poker, and the tea was getting made. Dudley made a noise of hunger at the smell of the sausages, but Vernon forbade him from accepting anything. Hagrid meanwhile made it clear he wasn't offering anything to the Dursleys, and gave Harry the first six sausages. Even if Harry was starving, the sausages were still easily one of the tastiest things he'd ever eaten. But the food wasn't distracting Harry from the fact that he still didn't know who the man was.

"I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."

"Call me Hagrid," he said, "Everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts - yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."

"Er, not really. Sorry."

"Sony?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yet parents learned it all?"

"All what?" Harry asked, glad that he was finally learning what this was all about.

"ALL WHAT?!"

What followed was a fuming giant yelling at the Dursleys for not telling Harry about his parents, about himself and most importantly, that: "Yer a wizard, Harry."

"...A...what?" Harry was almost certain he'd misheard.

"A wizard Harry, an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."

Harry finally got his letter (which of course had the address adjusted per usual for his current location) and read that he'd been accepted to a school and that today was the last day to reply back (cutting it a little close there) and that he needed to reply by "owl" Of all the questions in his mind at the moment, that seemed a little bit pressing. "What does it meant, they await my owl?" He asked.

Hagrid was quick to pull a real, live, and very ruffled looking owl. He quickly pulled out a quill, ink, and parchment too to write a letter to someone, then gave the letter to the owl and tossed it out into the storm. Harry briefly wondered if the owl would be alright, but Hagrid didn't seem worried. When Hagrid came back, he was about to continue explaining when Vernon promptly tried to put a stop to things, saying that Harry wouldn't be going. What followed was a brief argument and then a rant where Aunt Petunia got some things off her chest that she'd obviously been keeping bottled up for ages. He also learned that his parents died, not in a car crash, as he'd long thought, but because they fought against a dark wizard called Voldemort. Harry learned his own story, that was was "The-Boy-Who-Lived" He learned that his aunt and uncle had tried to squash the magic out of him. He learned that all the weird things in his life had been caused by him when he'd been angry or upset. The whole while Vernon had tried to voice his opposition and stop things, but Hagrid wasn't having it. It came to an abrupt end when Vernon made the mistake to call Dumbledore a "Crackpot old fool" after which the gentle giant showed how terrifying he could be, before making Dudley look more like his real self. Harry then learned that Hagrid wasn't technically supposed to do magic, that he'd been expelled from Hogwarts. Hagrid then gave Harry his large coat to sleep with until morning.

* * *

Harry and Hagrid stepped into a place called the Leaky Cauldron in London. That morning Harry had learned a lot about the wizarding world, about Gringotts and the Ministry of Magic, and that Hagrid liked to knit. He'd learned that Hagrid didn't understand much about the muggle side of things too.

Once they entered the grubby looking pub, things got weird. Once the patrons realized that Harry Potter was there, there was a flurry of people trying to shake his hand, saying how proud they were to meet him, thanking him for something he didn't remember doing. Rather than feeling happy or proud, Harry found himself feeling confused and uncomfortable. He also met his Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, who seemed to be a bit...nervous. Hagrid said this was normal for him.

After all the hubbub was done, Harry and Hagrid went out to the back, where Hagrid laughed at having proved that Harry was famous before tapping the wall, revealing Diagon Alley. Harry of course tried to look at everything all at once. The sights, the sounds, the people, the animals. Even the smells, good and bad were amazing for how new they were. Hagrid led the way to the bank, Gringotts, while Harry's head swiveled trying to look at the broomstick store, the apothecary, the pet store, the books. Soon enough though, the bank took Harry's attention. Harry saw his first goblin, the man at the door bowing as people entered. Harry was amazed to see such a thing. The goblin was shorter than him by a head, with a clever face and long fingers and nails. He smiled and waved at the goblin as they passed inside, causing the goblin to give a small look of confusion.

Once inside, they quickly made their way to one of the teller stations where Hagrid started talking to the goblin, saying that they needed to withdraw some of Harry's money and get a "You-know-what" from vault 713. This little diversion intrigued Harry, who quickly wondered what it was about. Another goblin, Griphook was called to take care of the giant and the kid.

"Hello Mr. Griphook, nice to meet you." Harry said, trying to be polite.

Griphook meanwhile, seemed a bit amused by the pleasantries. "Greetings Mr. Potter. If you two will come this way." He lead them down a stone tunnel lit by torches, which lead to a railway system of some kind. Griphook whistled, causing a cart to come speeding to a stop next to them. After getting in (Hagrid with a little difficulty), they were off. The cart was ridiculously fast, and Harry could keep track of the turns they were taking. With some dark amusement, Harry noted that Griphook didn't seem to be steering.

Once the ride was over, Hagrid needed to lean against the wall to stop his trembling knees. The ride didn't agree with him, and he seemed a sick shade of green. While Hagrid tried to catch his breath, Griphook opened Harry's vault. Griphook had to stop himself from laughing when Harry's jaw dropped.

There was so much money, piles of gold, silver, and bronze. Harry couldn't believe he had so much. The Dursleys had been complaining for ages about how much it cost to feed and house Harry. If they learned about this, they would do anything to take it from him. Remembering his resolve to take control of his life, Harry turned to Griphook and started asking questions.

"Mr. Griphook, can I ask some questions?"

"Of course Mr. Potter, how can I be of assistance?" The goblin raised an eyebrow, still bemused by politeness from a wizard.

"I've been raised by, um, muggles I think is the word. I don't know much about the wizarding world yet," Harry grabbed a gold coin, a silver, and a bronze one. "How does wizarding money work?"

With a smile, Griphook answered, "Simple my boy, it's seventeen silver sickles to a gold galleon, and twenty-nine bronze knuts to a silver sickle. And since I'm often asked this by other muggle-born children, one galleon is approximately equal to five British pounds, though the exchange rate varies from day to day of course."

Harry nodded as he looked around the room. He was decent at math, but he had no idea how to estimate how many coins he had. "About how much money do I have in total here?"

Without missing a beat, Griphook immediately told Harry, "You have 113,546 Galleons, 10 Sickles, and 20 Knuts. In addition to that, you have a number of small investments in some muggle and magical companies, equaling about another 150,000 Galleons in value. All told, you have about one million three hundred thousand pounds. Not bad, eh boy?"

Harry's mind had temporarily broken as he took in all that information. He had MONEY! Granted, it wasn't an inexhaustible amount of money. He wasn't a billionaire, and indeed, he was only barely a millionaire. But he had enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life.

"Like I said Harry, yer parents left yeh plenty of money to take care of yeh. You'll get through Hogwarts jus' fine. Now grab some of yer money and put it in this purse. I'll be jus' outside." The still greenish Hagrid tossed Harry a bag and went back outside to lean against the wall.

Harry turned again to the goblin and asked, "Mr. Griphook, about how much will I need to buy all my school supplies. I don't know how much things cost here."

Tilting his head slightly, Griphook seemed to think, doing the math in his head before saying, "80 Galleons will cover your first year's supplies, Mr. Potter, while leaving you some spending money. However, if I might make a suggestion?"

"Of course!"

"Then I suggest you consider making some long term investments with regards to your supplies. Most first years will get standard trunks with minor enlargement charms on the inside for storing their supplies, and while this will probably do you just fine for your school years, a good trunk can last a wizard a lifetime. There are certain kinds of trunks that allow for folded space storage, having multiple locks on the front, and unlocking each lock opens a different chest-space. You can even have the spaces customized so that one lock accesses a small library, another accesses a wardrobe, and so on. Since you can easily afford it, Mr. Potter, you might want to take out an extra hundred Galleons to buy yourself such a trunk. Also, since you know very little about the wizarding world, I suggest you buy more than just your designated school books. It might do you good to take an extra dozen galleons to buy books to expand your understanding of wizarding culture."

Thinking it over for a moment, Harry nodded, quickly grabbing and pouring 200 Galleons into the purse Hagrid gave him. He stopped at one point as he thought about the fact that he was casually withdrawing about a thousand pounds, and hardly making a dent in his money at all, but he continued. Once the money was in hand he nodded at the goblin saying, "Thank you for your help, sir."

The goblin returned the nod, "My pleasure Mr. Potter."

Harry left the vault, and looked up at the now normal coloured Hagrid. The giant had heard the conversation with Griphook, and understood that Harry wasn't about to go wasting his money of random things, so he decided not to stop this. He smiled at him and patted Harry on the back (nearly knocking him to the ground) as they headed back to the cart, heading now to vault 713, from which Hagrid retrieved a very tiny package. Knowing better than to ask, Harry just mentally filed the detail away for later. Another short ride later, and they were back in the sunlight. Hagrid quickly went off to the Leaky Cauldron for a pick-me-up, leaving Harry to get his robes from Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. Madam Malkin was a nice, squat lady in mauve robes, who quickly and cleverly deduced that Harry was a Hogwarts student in need of robes. She stood Harry on a stool near another young boy who was being worked on by another witch. The Madam quickly went to work figuring out Harry's measurements as the other boy started to speak.

"Hello, Hogwarts too?" He asked, sounding bored.

"Yep." Harry answered, smiling and trying to be friendly.

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands, then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."

Harry raised an eyebrow at this, being strongly reminded of Dudley's "I get what I want" attitude.

"Have you got your own broom yet?" The boy went on, glancing over at Harry briefly.

"No, but I was thinking of looking at them myself after this." Harry tried to not seem like he was clueless.

"Cool, maybe we can go look together. Do you play Quidditch?"

Following the train of the conversation, Harry figured that whatever Quidditch was, it was probably a broom based sport. "Nah, I've never really been one for sports." Harry replied, knowing that he was on the skinny side, and true, not one for sports.

The boy chuckled at Harry's comment, nodding slightly. "It's fun though, you should try it. I play Quidditch though, and my father says it would be a crime if I don't get picked to play for my house. Do you know what house you'll be in yet?"

Harry shook his head. He had no idea that Hogwarts would have houses or what they were, so he decided to go with a technically true answer, "I hadn't give it any thought, really."

"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been - imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

"I don't know, it might be worth it just to stay at Hogwarts, don't you think. It's the finest school for magic, isn't it?"

The pale boy made a face like he'd smelled something bad, "It is the best, but still, Hufflepuff? No thank you." It was at this point that the boy made a small squeaking noise, and then glared at the witch working on his clothes. Harry smiled thinking that the lady had probably been a Hufflepuff, and didn't like her house being made fun of.

"I say, look at that man!" said the boy suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and pointing at two large ice creams to show he couldn't come in.

"That's Hagrid," said Harry, glad to have a chance to sound knowledgeable. "He works at Hogwarts."

"Oh," said the boy, "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"

"He's the gamekeeper," said Harry. He figured that this boy was probably the rich type to define people in terms of being servants.

"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage - lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."

"I think he's brilliant," said Harry coldly.

"Do you?" said the boy, with a slight sneer. "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"

"They're dead," said Harry shortly. He didn't feel much like going into the matter with this boy.

"Oh, sorry," said the other, sounding more diplomatic than sorry. "But they were our kind, weren't they?"

"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean."

"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What's your surname, anyway?"

Harry smirked at his comments, thinking back on how Hagrid thought Harry, who'd been raised almost exactly as the boy had described, would be an amazing wizard. More, he could tell that there was more prejudice hidden in the boy than his words said. And it annoyed Harry to think that his mother was also exactly the type of person the other boy was describing. Starting to feel angry, Harry was about to say something to the boy when Madam Malkin said that she was done. Wasting no time, Harry quickly hopped down off the stool and headed out to Hagrid.

"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," said the drawling boy.

Soon after, Harry was eating his ice cream with Hagrid, who seemed to pick up on Harry's annoyed mood. Harry didn't want to talk about it just yet, so they went and bought parchment and quills. Harry cheered up a bit when he got some ink that changed colors as you wrote. Eventually though, Harry would tell Hagrid about his encounter with the boy, and start asking questions about Quidditch, the houses of Hogwarts, and about the bigotry that the boy had hinted at. Hagrid, to the best of his ability, told Harry what he could. Though when Hagrid said that all bad wizards came from Slytherin, the young boy felt very doubtful of that. Soon after they were buying Harry's school books in a store called Flourish and Blotts. After getting his required books Harry took Griphook's advice to heart, and spent fifteen Galleons buying a couple big books that covered broad topics such as Hogwarts, politics, and general modern history, as well as a couple dozen cheaper books. Anything that was less than three or four sickles was grabbed, adding a good number of fictional books, short stories, and novellas to Harry's collection. Harry hoped that reading these books would give him a better understanding of wizarding culture.

Hagrid and Harry's arms were getting pretty loaded by then, so they stopped by Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment and got Harry a 7-lock trunk for 90 Galleons. Much to Harry's annoyance, the store owner almost gave it to Harry for free when he noticed his scar and realized who he was. Harry managed to convince the store owner to only give Harry a 10% discount ("But you saved us all, my boy, please let me-" "No.").

After that they stopped at the apothecary and got Harry his potions supplies, the cauldron and ingredients. Harry tried to get more upscale supplies but Hagrid firmly stopped him, getting only what was needed. With that out of the way, all that was left really was the wand. But before that, Hagrid insisted on giving Harry a pet as a birthday present. Harry tried to tell him that he didn't need to, but Hagrid bought him a beautiful snowy owl he would eventually name Hedwig. Harry had to be quiet afterwords. He was fighting back the urge to cry from the first real birthday present he ever had. Hagrid pretended not to notice.

After that Harry and Hagrid went to Ollivander's to get Harry's wand. About fifteen minutes later they came out with Harry's new wand (holly and phoenix feather, 11 inches, nice and supple). All Harry had to say was, "Well, that was dramatic." Hagrid nodded in agreement.

With all his supplies purchased and safely stored in his chest, Harry and Hagrid went to get something to eat before Harry returned to the Dursleys. While they ate Harry confessed some fears he'd been feeling. He'd heard a lot of people saying they expect great things from him, while others acted like he was already great because of something he couldn't remember doing. Hagrid assured the young boy that he would be great. He would learn what he needed to learn and everything would work out. With that all done, Hagrid handed Harry his train ticket and got up to leave. Harry glanced at the ticket and noticed something about it that raised a few questions. Before Hagrid got two steps away from the table, Harry spoke up.

"Hold on a second Hagrid!"

"Eh? What s'matter?"

"This ticket says platform 9 3/4? King's Cross is a muggle train station, they don't do platforms like that."

"Oh blimey, can't believe I didn't think of tha'. Sorry Harry. In King's Cross between platforms nine and ten is a column where the signs hang. Jus' walk into that column and you'll end up on 9 3/4."

"Oh," Harry said, relieved that there wasn't a mistake with his ticket. "So it's hidden with magic? Like the Leaky Cauldron?"

"Nah, It's more of an invisible door than a thing muggles can't see."

"Okay, thank you Hagrid. I'll see you at Hogwarts."

* * *

Harry actually enjoyed the next month with the Dursleys while he waited for school to start. He spent his time pooring over his many new books, quickly learning many details about Wizard culture that would be useful in the future, probably. He also found that he loved studying his school books, and deeply regretted that he couldn't practice his spells. He figured that he could probably practice his potions if he wanted, but decided against it. While the Dursleys generally acted like he didn't exist (a major improvement) he could tell the current relationship was tenuous at best. They were scared of him and what they thought he could do, and he realized that if they knew he wasn't allowed to do magic, he'd probably be in trouble. Right now the fear was keeping the Dursleys from doing anything bad, but Harry realized he needed something more solid to protect him from the muggles. He'd probably be fine for the month, but next year, who knows? Nothing in his current collection of books gave Harry anything that might help, but he didn't find anything. Thinking of the muggles, Harry needed a ride to King's Cross.

"Excuse me, Uncle Vernon?"

"Mmm." The uncle grunted, showing he was listening.

"I need to get to King's Cross tomorrow to take the train to school."

Another grunt.

"Can you give me a ride, or should I ride my broomstick all over town?" Harry was getting annoyed with the vague grunting. He decided to drop a line that he new would get a rise out of his Uncle.

A gagging sound came from the Uncle as he turned and glared at Harry. Harry smirked.

"I'll drive you to the blasted train station boy. I don't want the neighbors knowing about your bloody weirdness."

"Thank you Uncle Vernon, I really appreciate it." Harry didn't bother hiding his sarcasm. He turned to leave when Vernon continued talking.

"Funny way to get to a wizards' school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?"

Not missing a beat, Harry responded with, "Magic Carpets are more middle-eastern wizards than British. We ride brooms, use Portkeys, or Apparate."

"Then why do you need to ride a train, eh? Where is this school, anyway?"

"The highlands of Scotland, I think. It's enchanted to be Unplottable, so I literally can't give specifics beyond that."

"And yet, you'll be getting on a train to go there? Aren't your kind supposed to be secret? How do you hide a train going to a bloody magic school?"

Harry smirked as he told his Uncle, "The Hogwarts Express leaves from Platform nine and three quarters. Muggles don't know where that is."

Vernon turned an angry shade of red and he raised his voice, "There is no bloody nine and three quarters at King's Cross!"

"We'll see Uncle, if there isn't, you can just leave me at the station. You will anyway, won't you?"

Vernon glared at Harry for a moment before grunting an angry affirmation and returning to his paper.

The next day they all got to King's Cross at half past ten. Vernon had grabbed Harry's trunk and put it in a cart for him, which was oddly nice until they were at the pillar between platforms nine and ten and Vernon was giving him an evil smile, waiting. Ah, he simply wants to see me fail.

"So boy, here's platforms nine, and ten, and there doesn't seem to be any nine and three quarters here, now does it?"

"I already told you it's not like, you know what, never mind. See you next year Uncle." With that Harry grabbed his cart and strode purposefully towards the pillar. He had a brief moment of panic where he thought the very solid looking wall would remain solid, but the next thing he knew, he was on a different platform, with a shiny red train waiting for him. Not wanting to miss the looks on their faces, Harry quickly turned around and poked his head through the portal, grinning at a stunned Dursley family, and then came back to the magical side of things.

He took in the sights around him, all the people wearing robes, the owls hooting, with the occasional cat meowing or frog croaking. People were still arriving and so the compartments weren't too filled up yet, but Harry decided to go for one of the empty ones near the back. He got Hedwig's cage in alright, but he had trouble with his trunk. Even with a Weight-Reducing Charm on it, it was still a bit heavy for scrawny Harry. Luckily a pair of red-haired twins came by and offered to help. They got the trunk loaded in quickly before they noticed Harry's scar and realized who he was. A red-face Harry asked them not to make a big deal out of it, though the cheeky twins made no promises.

From his compartment, he was able to hear the twins talking to their family, and felt a brief pang of envy at the sounds of their loving, if amusingly dysfunctional family. Unfortunately the twins told their family about Harry Potter being on the train. The young daughter of the group excitedly asked to get on the train to see him, but was shut down by her mother, saying he wasn't someone to be ogled at like an animal in the zoo. Harry silently thanked the mystery mother for that. She also forbade the twins from asking Harry any questions about Voldemort or anything that might bother him on his first day of school. Again, Harry felt appreciative for the understanding woman.

Soon enough the train whistled and everyone hurried to get on the train. They were off, to a magical place where everything would be different for Harry.

It wasn't long before a red-haired boy Harry's age opened the door to his compartment. The twins came back briefly to introduce themselves (Fred and George Weasley) and their brother (Ron). Harry and Ron quickly got acquainted and learned a little bit about each other. Harry realized that Ron's family wasn't very well off quickly, which put Harry in an odd position because until a month ago, he was pretty poor himself. When the trolley came around, filled with candies he'd never seen before. Harry bought a little of everything and promptly started to share with Ron. It was nice to have someone to share things with. He learned about Chocolate Frogs and the cards they came with, starting his collection with Albus Dumbledore and a couple others. The Merlin card interested Harry greatly because the immensely famous wizard, even in the muggle world, was apparently a Slytherin, and yet was a major force for good in his time. Harry had immense fun with the Every Flavor Beans. Even when he got a bad flavor, he would laugh at the fact that whatever it was was even a flavor in the first place.

A round-face boy poked his head into their compartment briefly, asking if they'd seen his toad. Harry and Ron said no, but Harry offered to help find it, but the boy said to just let him know if they saw it. Not long later, a cute, bushy haired girl came in with the boy again asking the same question. Rolling his eyes a bit, Harry said that he and Ron were keeping an eye out for Trevor. The girl noticed then that Ron had his wand out, having been about to show Harry a spell. It didn't work out, and Hermione Granger, as she introduced herself, demonstrated her motormouth abilities saying that she could already do a couple spells and had memorized her school books. After Harry and Ron introduced themselves, Hermione excitedly starting talking about all the stuff she new about Harry, but he quickly cut her off.

"Hermione, hold on. Think for a second like a Ravenclaw." This seemed to make Hermione blush for a moment as she stopped and listened. "I was only one when the thing with Voldemort happened. No one else was there. I've since been raised by Muggles and only a month ago learned about the Wizarding World, much like you, I think. Whatever those books say about me, whatever they think happened that night, don't put any stock in it. I'm just a normal kid, okay?"

Hermione nodded, slightly embarrassed before she started talking again, "Do either of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad..."

Harry laughed a bit as he waved off Hermione's concerns. "You shouldn't worry too much about what house you're going to be in, though I think you should be in Ravenclaw. Each house generally has two virtues going for them, you know. Gryffindor is the house of the brave and the noble. They're most likely to be 'heroes' so to speak, but they also have a tendency to be reckless." Ron seemed to chuckle, nodding his head. Harry figured that he was thinking about his brothers. "Ravenclaw favors people of intelligence and wisdom, though sometimes they can be a bit eccentric." Hermione nodded, paying rapt attention to Harry. "Hufflepuffs are the house of hardwork and loyalty. From what I understand, if you're a Hufflepuff, you'll never find better friends, though you better be ready to work hard." Harry noted that Neville was listening intently at this. "And finally, Slytherin-"

"The house of evil gits." Ron snorted, crossing his arms and leaning back as if that was all there was to say on the matter.

"No." Harry said sharply, looking at Ron for a moment before looking back at Hermione. "Slytherin is the house that prizes ambition and cunning. Most Dark wizards tend to want to gain lots of power, which is an ambitious desire, so they tend to be place in Slytherin, but that doesn't mean everyone in the house is evil. Evil wizards have come from all the houses, even Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. But ambition isn't evil, as this man could tell you." Harry held up his newly acquired Merlin card. "Merlin was a Slytherin, and he was one of the greatest advocators for muggle rights. He was ambitious, and holy cow was he cunning. But he wasn't evil."

None of the other three seemed to want to argue with Harry, though Ron seemed grumpy. Hermione quietly said that Ron and Harry should get changed, as they would arrive soon, before leaving with Neville. Harry saw that they were both thoughtful as they left. Turning back to Ron, Harry was quickly to diplomatically change the subject before Ron could say anything about Houses. Harry asked about Ron's brothers, learning what they did for a living after Hogwarts. He also learned about the break-in at Gringotts, and about Quidditch teams, of which Ron was a huge fan. Their chat about the rules of Quidditch was interrupted though when the pale boy from the robe shop, backed by two thuggish looking boys entered their compartment.

"Is it true?" he said. "They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"

"Yep," Harry said, rolling his eyes and turning up the sarcasm. "I'm Harry bleedin Potter. No, by all means, feel free to come and stare at me like everyone else. It's not like I'm getting uncomfortable or anything."

All three of the boys looked both surprised and uncomfortable. The leader quickly tried to rally though.

"These two are Crabbe and Goyle, my name is Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."

Ron openly sniggered at Malfoy's name, causing the pale boy to sneer at Ron and identify his as a Weasley and calling him poor. Turning back to Harry he said, "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there."

Malfoy held out his hand for Harry to shake, which Harry stared at for a moment. He knew he didn't like this Malfoy, and he knew he didn't trust him to know right from wrong if it was labeled in neon. But he wanted to be diplomatic so he said, "I think I'll try figuring things out for myself for now. Thanks for the offer though."

He stepped back, not taking Malfoy's hand and crossing his arms, making it clear that the conversation was over. It seemed that Malfoy had more that he wanted to say, but decided to leave instead. After they left, Ron and Harry quickly got changed into their robes and waited to arrive at Hogwarts. Harry and Ron, along with the other first years, were quickly gathered up by Hagrid, who greeted Harry warmly. They all soon got their first sight of Hogwarts, the majestic castle was sitting on the hill, towers glittering and all its splendor reflected on the surface of the lake. All the first years then got into a bunch of boats, with Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville sharing one. With a word, Hagrid made all the boats move across the lake, gliding smoothly in silence. Soon enough, they were all clambering out of the boats, and Hagrid found Neville's toad.

They were lead to the castle, where Hagrid handed them off to Professor McGonagall, a stern looking witch that gave Harry the same sense of familiarity as when he first met Hagrid. After leading them to a room next to the Great Hall, McGonagall made the rules clear to the first years, telling them about the Sorting and the Houses, and the House Cup. She left them momentarily, during which many of the kids started gossiping about what the sorting would or wouldn't be. Harry himself found it odd that during his reading he'd found nothing about how the Sorting Ceremony actually worked, but decided not to worry too much. It couldn't be a test, like some of the kids were saying, that wouldn't be fair. And since sorting was based more on personality traits, it wouldn't be worth it to try and remember any spells, like Hermione was doing. So Harry decided just to relax until it was time. That is, until about twenty ghosts came through the wall, startling everyone, including Harry. They were quickly shooed away though when McGonagall returned, and lead them into the Great Hall.

Once inside the Hall, Harry had to resist the urge to gape at the ceiling, which looked like the night sky. He'd read about it in his book, _Hogwarts, A History_ , but to see it in person was unreal. McGonagall quickly set up a positively _ancient_ hat on a stool which suddenly burst into song, describing it's job and the houses. When it spoke of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, Harry smiled and nodded at Neville and Hermione, the latter of whom blushed prettily. The hat soon finished its song, and Harry nodded. A magical, mind-reading Hat that checked your personality and sorted you. Makes as much sense as anything in the Wizarding World. McGonagall then pulled out a list and started calling names.

"Abbott, Hannah!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

The sorting went relatively quickly, each house cheering loudly when it got a new student. Harry quickly noted that the time it took the Hat to choose varied sometimes, taking a mere second for some, and longer for others, like Finnigan, who took almost a whole minute. Harry figured this might be because a student has traits of multiple houses. _Was the hat asking them for their choice, or was the hat mulling it over?_ Harry wondered briefly.

"Granger, Hermione!" Harry perked up when he heard the girl's name, looking over at her. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, glancing at Harry for a moment before running up to the stool and jamming the hat on her head. Harry noticed that she was pulling the brim down, almost as if she didn't want to make eye contact with anyone while she was sorted. Four minutes slowly ticked by. Harry saw Hermione bit her lower lip once or twice nervously. Almost imperceptible, Harry saw her just barely shake her head, once, twice, three times, she told the hat no.

"RAVENCLAW!"

The Ravenclaw table erupted into cheers as Hermione, red-faced and avoiding looking at Harry, ran over to join her new House. Harry felt that there was probably something to do with him in that Sorting, but he didn't know what. But he was distracted by the next student, Neville, who was sorted into Hufflepuff after a long wait. Many other names followed, including Malfoy, who was sorted into Slytherin in an instant. But finally, "Potter, Harry!"

Harry bravely stepped forward, ignoring the whispers that had started as expected. He sat on the stool, his eyes locking onto Hermione. The last thing he saw before the hat came down was her hopeful face.

* * *

"Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. "Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes - and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting... So where shall I put you?"

 _Do I have a choice in the matter?_ Harry asked, thinking the question.

"To a degree, yes. I would never put a student in a house they hated. But ultimately, I choose the house I think will help the students best grow into who they are meant to be."

Harry sat there for a moment, considering this. _What would each house offer me?_

"Well, if you go to Gryffindor, you will be a true and noble hero for sure. You will gain the courage to do what needs to be done in the coming days. If you go to Ravenclaw, you will gain immense knowledge and wisdom, learning things that would surely help you. In Hufflepuff, you would find many friends and allies, you'll surely become someone who'd be able to do anything you set your mind to. But in Slytherin, oh yes, in Slytherin, you'd truly find greatness. All those ambitions you never thought possible would easily be within reach. All your goals, your dreams, they would guide you to power and fame."

 _What if, I don't care about any of that?_ Harry thought, _What if all I want, is to never be a victim again?_

"What?" The small voice seemed surprised, even disturbed. Images flashed by in the back of Harry's head. He could feel the hat sorting through his memories, seeing the ten years he spent with the Dursleys, what they did to him and how much Harry wanted to never go back to that again. "Oh, oh shite."

 _Yeah_. Harry thought with a chuckle. _I don't care about fame. I don't care about glory, or power, or wealth. Tell me, which house will protect me from_ them _? Which house will teach me to never be a victim. Which house will understand my hatred of_ them _._

Five minutes, and eighteen seconds after putting on the hat, the Sorting Hat finally decided where the Boy-Who-Lived would go, what path his destiny lay on. The hat declared, "SLYTHERIN!"


	2. Chapter 2: A Bumpy First Week

OMAKE 1

Harry was browsing the trunks of Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment after having manage to convince the owner to 'only' give him a 10% discount instead of getting a trunk entirely for free. He was amazed by the different types of trunks that existed. Some were basically mobile houses, some were a mobile potions lab, and some were simply for OCD wizards who needed a hundred different compartments for organizing. Harry though, liked the 7-Lock special. Each lock accessed a different type of storage room. With the owner's permission Harry was cycling through each of them to see. The interesting thing about the trunk was that it had to be set on its side to open, with the trunk lid acting like a door into the rooms of the trunk. The first lock was a small library with a single chair. It could hold about a thousand books, give or take. It would easily handle Harry's school books and whatever other books he bought over the years. The second was a wardrobe, basically functioning as a walk-in closet that could hold the average person's entire wardrobe. Interestingly, it also came with a magical clothes hamper. If you tossed dirty clothes in, it would magically clean them in about ten minutes. You still had to fold and hang them yourself though. The third and fourth locks accessed normal storage rooms, the third being just an empty 3m x 3m room, and the fourth had modular shelving. The fifth was a tiny kitchen with a stove, a magical-based fridge, and a pantry. The sixth and seventh were both modular rooms, being able to be set up and used as desired (a potions lab was a popular setting, with pet storage being a close second). The sixth was currently set up as a bedroom with a small queen sized bed. The seventh one-

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

A half-naked, angry old man with one eye and a peg-leg leapt out of the seventh room, screaming about various paranoias before sprinting out of the store, leaving Harry, Hagrid, and the store owner stunned.

"Who the fuck was that?!"

"Uh...that was...a friend of mine...Alaster "Mad-Eye" Moody."

"'Mad' doesn't quite cover THAT"

"Yeah..."

* * *

The first thing Harry saw when the hat was taken off his head was Hermione's look of shock and betrayal. Immediately Harry felt his stomach twist, feeling regret for choosing Slytherin as his eyes swept around the room. Ron, Neville, the Twins, everyone had a look of surprise and in some cases, fear on their faces. The only ones that didn't look shocked were the Slytherins, who mostly looked confused, though Malfoy had a look of smug triumph on his face. In fact, Malfoy was the first Slytherin to stand up and start clapping, the others quickly following his lead. Harry quickly stomped over to his new home, avoiding the eyes of other students. If he explained to them, would they understand?

"Glad to see you reconsidered my offer." Malfoy said as Harry sat down, wanting to sit as far away from Malfoy as possible, but the only seat available was next to him. Crabbe and Goyle were on the other side of Malfoy.

"Don't count on it Malfoy. I still decide things for myself, and you, are not my friend." Harry was quick to cut off any belief by Malfoy that he could be manipulated. He almost enjoyed the look of confusion at being brushed off on Draco's face, but he was distracted by looking at the Head Table. His eyes swept across the table, taking in the different looks. Hagrid looked horrified. Harry remembered what Hagrid had said, about bad wizards only coming from Slytherin. Hagrid was Harry's first friend, surely, he'd understand, he wouldn't abandon Harry, would he? Professor McGonagall looked distressed, though she valiantly tried to keep working, calling the next couple students for their sorting. The cheers for each student was more muted now, as the whole Hall seemed to be reeling from Harry's sorting. Harry saw Albus Dumbledore, the man from his Chocolate Frog Card, who seemed to be staring intensely at Harry, contemplating something. Professor Quirrel, now wearing a purple turban, was looking at Harry with nervous worry. Next to him was a man in black robes, with greasy hair and a hooked nose, who looked pensive as he looked at Harry.

Harry's scanning of the teachers was interrupted when he realized McGonagall was continuing to Sort students. The cheers of the tables were much more subdued now, after what Harry did. Ron was the second to last to be sorted, and he went into Gryffindor. He glared at Harry as he came down from the hat. It hurt a lot more than Harry expected it to, to have a friend turn on him like that. Was Ron's worldview really so narrow?

As Blaise Zabini was sorted into Ravenclaw, Harry looked down at the golden plate in front of him. Despite the emotional turmoil he was dealing with, he realized he was fairly hungry. Sharing candy with Ron felt like it happened ages ago.

"Ahem."

Harry looked up from his thoughts, realizing that Dumbledore had stepped up to the podium. He had the air of a friendly grandfather, as if nothing was wrong and he was happy to see his grandchildren. Harry briefly wondered if Dumbledore had any descendants in Hogwarts. He couldn't remember if he'd heard any mention of Dumbledore having kids.

"Welcome, welcome to a new year at Hogwarts. I know you're all hungry, but before we begin our Start of Year feast, I'd like to say just a few words; Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

"Thank you."

As Dumbledore sat down, the students clapped and cheered, more so as the food magically appeared. Everyone started digging in. Harry slowly started adding a little of everything to his plate. He was hungry, but he still had a lot to think about. He could tell people were staring at him when he wasn't looking. It was still really uncomfortable to be the center of attention. Harry listened to the conversations happening around him as he ate, listening to the Bloody Baron, Slytherin's house ghost, talk to the new first years, encouraging them to keep Slytherin's winning streak going for the house cup. A brief noise came from Gryffindor table, where Harry saw a ghost tip his head "nearly" off his neck, giving Ron and the other first years a surprise.

Among the conversations at Harry's table, most were about pedigree, how many generations back each family could prove it's pure-blood status, as well as talking about who was related to who and how. It turns out that most Pure-Blood families at this point were related to some degree. Glancing at some of his fellow house-mates, Harry realized that some families might have turned to inbreeding to keep pure. More importantly though, from the way a lot of them held themselves and talked, he could tell that they were an arrogant and self-serving lot, but he saw precious few people who gave him the impression of "cunning and ambition". Draco was one of the only ones who actually felt like he could live up to the Slytherin virtues, though he was just as arrogant and narcissistic as any of the others.

Harry paced himself while he ate. He didn't see much in the way of real desserts on the table, and thinking that they might come later, Harry tried to save some room. As he was nibbling on some delectable lamb chops, Harry suddenly felt a sharp pain jolt through his head. He managed not to make any noise, but Draco noticed him quickly palm his forehead, trying futilely to rub the pain away.

"Potter?" Draco asked warily. Harry couldn't tell if he was concerned, curious, or still trying to manipulate him.

"Nothing, my scar hurts every now and then. Must be because of that curse from when I was young. May have beaten Voldemort, but it still stings." Harry was surprised at himself for how easily he could come up with lies. His scar had never hurt before in his life, that he could recall, and he had no idea why it hurt now, though the pain was fading. Harry tried to brush it off though, which was made easier when the desserts finally appeared. Harry was so glad he'd kept some room available. He grabbed a chocolate eclair, some treacle tart, a slice of apple pie, and a couple scoops of ice cream. Meanwhile most of the other first years were barely able to nibble on one treat of their choice, much to the laughter of the older students.

"I told you boys to pace yourself," Said Gemma Farley, a Slytherin Prefect, who daintily ate an eclair herself. "Looks like Mr. Potter was the only one 'cunning' enough to plan ahead." She winked at the younger boy who couldn't stop himself from blushing. He suddenly became worried that he might be that kind of famous, where random older women would hit on him, if for no other reason than because he's famous. Harry tried to cool himself off using a big spoonful of ice cream.

Glancing again at the other tables, Harry saw Ron getting along great with Dean and Seamus, while Neville was smiling happily at his new Hufflepuff friend Justin Finch-Fletchley. Hermione though seemed miserable, ignoring the chatter around her. Harry didn't understand why she was so upset, but he decided he'd try to talk to her about it as soon as he could.

Finally, the desserts disappeared too, and Dumbledore stood up to address the students again. He mentioned some things about a forbidden forest being forbidden, a list of contraband, and a deadly third floor corridor or something. Harry wasn't paying attention. He was trying to make eye contact with Hermione, but was stopped when everyone suddenly started singing an extremely odd song at different tunes. A very confused Harry just looked around until the last one finished (the twins were singing to the tune of a funeral march).

After that, everyone was dismissed to bed. Gemma gathered the first years and started leading them towards the dungeons, explaining various things about Hogwarts as they went. She warned them about Peeves, a poltergeist, about moving stairways and changing hallways, and how if they get lost, ask a painting for help. He noticed that at times they were lead through hidden passageways behind tapestries or moving wall panels. Soon enough they were at the common room, and they learned the current password ("Elite"). After a moment of awe at realizing the Slytherin dungeons were partially under the lake (And a giant squid was swimming past the windows right then too) Gemma sorted the boys and girls towards their dormitories and told them to go to bed. Breakfast started at 7:30 and classes at 9:00, Snape would hand out everyone's schedule in the morning.

Harry and the other boys went down the hall they were pointed to and found individual rooms with their names on the doors.

"Good night Potter." Malfoy said politely before he entered his room. Harry was bemused that he kept trying to be polite and friendly. He was seriously determined to get on Harry's good side. Shrugging, Harry went into his room, changed into his pajamas, and went to bed. He had an odd nightmare during the night, where he was wearing Quirrel's turban and it was telling him all was going according to destiny. Fortunately, Harry wouldn't remember this dream the next day.

* * *

The first day of classes, Professor Snape magically handed out the schedules for all the students, which one student commented as being rare. Snape apparently usually likes to meet the first years at least, to get acquainted. Harry felt that this change had something to do with him.

Harry looked over his schedule during breakfast, classes started at nine, there were four hours before lunch at one, lunch for two hours, then two more hours of classes. Every Wednesday night at midnight was Astrology, with Thursday Mornings being off so they could sleep in afterword. Friday afternoons were also off, but that was the time most clubs and extra-curricular activities happened.

Navigating the school was a nightmare. Apparently, Gemma wasn't lying when she talked about getting lost. Luckily the older girl was always willing to point Harry in the right direction when they crossed paths, though Harry had to try and ignore her trying to flirt with him. Harry had quickly learned that his family being moderately rich was moderately well known, plus his fame for the Voldemort thing, plus being in Slytherin made him a "catch". There were many girls of various ages trying to get his attention, and one afternoon he'd even overheard some girls talking about their plans to marry him for money. Harry decided to be very careful before he lets anyone date him, it'd be too easy to get into trouble.

Over the course of his first week, Harry learned that he liked almost all of his classes, and all of his teachers. He liked Transfiguration, even though it was extremely difficult; somehow, he and Draco were the best in the class, while Ron was the worst. Harry tried to offer what tips he figured out, but the red-haired boy refused to talk to him. Charms was easier, sort of, and the teacher, Flitwick was very friendly. Herbology was terrifying at times as the plants would poke, bite, or yell at him, but Neville seemed to have things under control. Neville wasn't being friendly with Harry yet, but he was at least polite, which made Harry hopeful. Magical Theory was one of the more interesting classes, where he learned about the mechanics of magic. Apparently if he stuck to this subject, he would eventually learn the tricks for Spell Creation. Astronomy was amazing, and he kind of wished they did it more than once every Wednesday at midnight. Defense against the Dark Arts was fun, though Quirrel had trouble at times. Hermione, who was quite knowledgeable already, was a great help to Quirrel, able to finish his sentences when he was stuttering too hard. During flying class, Harry learned that he was a natural with a broomstick, with him and Draco being the only ones able to "Up" the brooms on the first command. Draco and Ron had tried to start a fight, but Madam Hooch put a quick stop to it. History of Magic was a bloody nightmare, with only Hermione having the ability to stay awake during Binns' monotone lectures.

Friday morning was a class Harry had been looking forward to. They had a double potions class first thing with the Gryffindors. Harry had heard that Snape favored Slytherins over other students, which he didn't exactly liked, but was glad that the teacher with the mean rep wouldn't be mean to him. Soon enough, the Slytherins and Gryffindors were both in the Potions classroom, waiting for Snape to show up, who did so in a dramatic manner, bursting in the door and striding to the front while reciting a very well prepared speech.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking, as there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

Snape spoke in a whisper, but he had a way of commanding the room to listen intently. His piercing gaze swept around the room before finally settling onto Harry, causing the boy to realize that things weren't going to go well.

"Mr. Potter...our new...celebrity..." Snape seemed to be contemplating something, as if not sure whether to go left or right. Finally, it seemed he made a decision.

"Potter, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

 _Oh great, we're doing this thing?_ Harry thought to himself before trying to remember what he'd read from his potions book during the summer. "I remember that asphodel has sedative properties and wormwood is a catalyst, so I assume a sleeping potion of some kind?"

Snape blinked, seemingly surprised at getting something of an answer. He didn't say whether Harry was correct or not, simply moving to the next question.

"Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

"You mean aside from an apothecary or the ingredients closet? Then...I think I remember reading about bezoars in some eastern medicines. I think they come from cow stomachs."

Snape raised an eyebrow, though Harry couldn't tell if it was because of his sass or his answer.

"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

Harry perked up at this one, explicitly remembering the line from One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. "Oh, those two are the same thing, there's a third name for it too but I can't remember it."

"Hm...it seems you actually opened your books before coming to school. To clarify, Potter, Asphodel and Wormwood are ingredients in a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. And while the superstitions of Eastern Muggles do not interest me, they apparently are close. Bezoars with actually useful properties come from wizard-raised goats alone, normal cows simply produce solid pits of bile. But you got the last question right, though the third name you were looking for was aconite."

The professor seemed confused. Obviously, he had expected Harry to fail every question, to prove a point of some kind, but it seemed to have backfired. But rather than seem embarrassed or angry, like Harry somewhat expected. Snape merely seemed confused. It quickly passed though. Snape seemed to brush off whatever he was thinking about and just moved on with the class, as if nothing happened. Considering he'd gotten the pop quiz mostly right, he had expected to maybe get some points, but Snape seemed to suddenly barely acknowledge Harry's existence. He started grouping students into pairs and got them straight into mixing a simple potion for curing boils. Much to Harry's annoyance, he was paired with Draco, who looked similarly annoyed.

"Let's just get this done Potter." Malfoy said. Harry nodded as he set up the cauldron and lit the fire. Working together, Draco and Harry managed to successfully make the potion. Draco seemed to have prior experience with potion making, while Harry had some knowledge himself from his self-study. Snape himself had deemed it "Acceptable." When he checked on them at the end of class. As Draco and Harry left the class, they nodded at each other respectfully for not messing up before splitting and making their own ways to the next class.

Later, during History of Magic before lunch, Harry suddenly realized he had hardly seen Hagrid at all during his first week. Hagrid was his first friend, might be his only one at the moment. Since his Friday afternoons were free, Harry decided to go and visit Hagrid.

* * *

Author's Notes: For those interested, here's Harry's official schedule for the first year:

Mon: 9-10 Herb w/H || 10-11 HoM w/R || 11-13 D/Charms w/G || lunch || 3 -5 D/Trans w/G  
Tues: 9-10 Herb w/H || 10-11 Charms w/G || 11-12 DADA w/R || 12-13 Flying /G (r/pots after first month || lunch || 3 -5 D/Trans w/G  
Wed: 9-10 Herb w/H || 10-11 HoM w/R || 11-12 DADA w/R || 12-13 Mag Theory w/H || lunch || 3-5 D/Astrology prepwork w/All || midnight: Astrology/All  
Thur: Mornings off || lunch || 3-5 Mag Theory w/H  
Frida: 9-11 D/Potions w/G || 11-12 DADA w/R || 12-13 HoM w/R || lunch || Afternoons off, clubs and extra-curriculars

The Harry Potter Wikia can be a bit confusing at times about the scheduling of classes. One page said that there were four lessons before lunch and two after, while another had a timetable that contradicted both that and some parts of the book. All in all, it was confusing trying to figure out, but me and my British Beta Celran like the current schedule set up. Each class has three hours a week, while Astronomy is worked in without having the kids stay up late and get up early. Flying class only lasted like one scene, so I have it disappear after a month. Also, I'm currently planning to try and do an omake bit at the start of each chapter, taking place during the previous chapter, like I did above. Yes/No? Maybe so?


	3. Chapter 3: A Midnight Fustercluck

Side Story 1

September 6, 1991 2:55 pm  
Severus Snape's Office  
Hogwarts

Severus Snape, Head of Slytherin House and Potion Master of Hogwarts, was confused. He'd spent ten years preparing himself to hate the son of James Potter, even as he also prepared to protect Lily Evans' child. Both of Harry's parents had been in Gryffindor, and it was quite expected by pretty much everyone that in addition to that, him being the one who defeated Voldemort, and destined to do so again would guarantee him being in that House. But the Hat had put him in Slytherin...why? Severus had often thought that with her cunning, Lily should have been put into Slytherin. Maybe the boy would take more after his mother than father. He looked almost exactly like his father though. That alone almost caused Severus to boil with rage when he saw him at the feast, but the moment he saw the eyes, Lily's eyes, the rage went away. Still, for the boy to be put in Slytherin was odd. That oaf Hagrid had been the one to retrieve the boy, surely he had filled the boy's mind with drivel about Slytherin being evil and Gryffindor good. And yet, when Severus made eye contact during the Potions lesson, he'd seen an open-mind. He saw glimpses of the boy looking into information on his own, learning an unbiased description of the Houses, and even giving it almost verbatim to other students on the Train. He'd seen fragments of the boy's life with those wretched muggles. He'd felt Harry's overpowering desire to never be a victim again. It almost scared Snape that parts of Harry's life reflected his own. The cruel mercies of Tobias Snape ran threw his mind, eeriely similar to some of the things that Vernon did. Harry's regret at choosing the unpopular house, losing several potential friends. It was all so haunting. And then the lesson itself. Snape had picked those questions from second, fourth, and sixth year tests. By all rights, Harry should not have known them, and he didn't for the most part. But he was smart enough to use what he did know to figure out a decent answer. Snape sighed as he stared into his fireplace. He did not know what to do with Harry Potter.

* * *

At a little after three, Harry started on his way down to Hagrid's hut. As he went, he remembered Hagrid's look of horror from the Sorting feast, and almost got cold feet. But he decided to keep going anyway. Hagrid was his first friend and he wasn't going to let that go easily. Soon enough he arrived and he knocked on the door. Harry was startled for a moment when he heard booming barks coming from inside the hut. _That sounds like a big dog!_ Harry thought. Recalling Hagrid saying he'd love to have a dragon, Harry wondered for a moment how dangerous the dog might be, but forced the thought away. Hagrid was big and scary looking, but he was a big softy. He knew better than to judge before knowing.

"Back, Fang, Back!" Hagrid's voice came booming from within. Harry heard shuffling noises as Hagrid tried to get a handle on his dog while walking over to the door. After a brief moment Hagrid opened the door as he asked, "Who's ther-?" Hagrid stopped mid-greeting as his eyes dropped down to Harry, his eyes widening in shock.

"Hey Hagrid." Harry said, trying to smile at his friend. "I have Friday afternoons off, so I thought I'd come visit you. Is that okay?"

"Ehhh..." Hagrid slipped from being shocked to confused, thinking hard about something as he looked at the boy. "But I though'- but yer- ah, nevermind." Hagrid shook his head as if to banish whatever he'd been thinking about before pulling his massive black boarhound back and letting Harry in. "Come in, come in, I'll put on some tea."

After the door was shut and Hagrid could let go of Fang, the massive dog quickly ran over to Harry and started licking his ears. Clearly he took after his master, fierce in appearance, loving on the inside. Harry laughed from the ticklish licks as he tried to push the dog away.

"Come on Fang, let the boy breathe." Hagrid said with a laugh as he started brewing the tea. Fang meanwhile stopped licking Harry, resting his head his Harry's lap after he sat down. Harry grimaced for a moment when he realizes the dog was drooling on him, but just accepted it and started lightly scratching Fang behind the ears.

"Y'know, I'm a bit surprised you came to see me Harry." Hagrid said as he handed Harry what looked like a cake shaped rock and a cup(friggin huge bucket more like) of tea and settled down in a seat of his own.

"Hagrid, you were my first friend and you saved me from the Dursleys. I don't care about 'House Stereotypes' or any of that. You're my friend and that's that. Those other Slytherins can sod off if they don't like it."

"Harry! Yeh shouldn't talk like that." Hagrid seemed a bit embarrassed at the open statement of friendship. "Even they're Slytherin, yer house is like yer family Harry."

Harry nodded absently as he looked around the hut, spotting a piece of paper looking like a newspaper clipping, grabbing it, Harry skimmed it over. "Hagrid, what's this?"

"Oh, uh...nothin' you'd be interested in Harry, heh." Hagrid said nervously, reaching over to try and take the paper from Harry.

"Hold on! This happened on my birthday! This must have happened after we'd left Hagrid!"

"I know Harry, but don't worry about it!"

"But didn't you empty that one vault? 713 right?"

"Harry you can't ask me that, it's between me and Dumbledore!"

Harry quickly found himself being politely thrown out of the hut, with his pockets laden with rock cakes and being told not to talk to anybody about anything. As he went back up to the castle, Harry thought deeply about what he knew. Hagrid had said that no place was more secure than Gringotts, except perhaps Hogwarts. He had retrieved a package the day that someone had tried to steal it, on Dumbledore's orders. And...the third floor corridor was forbidden at the moment. Musing, Harry guessed that the small package was of some great importance, Dumbledore foresaw someone trying to steal it and had Hagrid retrieve it just in time, while using Harry as a reason to be visiting Gringotts anyway, taking any possible attention away from Hagrid's mission. The item is likely now stored in the third floor corridor somewhere.

"But...hold on..." Harry muttered to himself. If Dumbledore is trying to hide/protect whatever the item is, then why did he blatantly announce where he's hiding it? Obvious trap perhaps? Dumbledore might have hidden it elsewhere and the third floor is just to bait potential thieves to be captured. Or perhaps, like Hagrid said, Hogwarts has methods to ensure its safety, even if people know where to look. Dumbledore said that people who went to the third floor would die a "horrible death" or something, so is the traps lethal?

Harry contemplated things all the way back to his room, where he'd finally realized that he still didn't know what the item in question was, and why people were trying to steal it.

"I need to find that out if I'm to solve this mystery." He said to himself, deciding to knock out some homework before dinner.

* * *

Next week during mail at breakfast, Harry noticed a bit of fuss happening over at the Gryffindor table. Looking up, he heard and saw that Neville had apparently gotten a rememberall. It quickly turned red, indicating Neville was forgetting something, though no one knew what it was. After a moment, Harry realized what it was. Getting up, he walked over and passed Neville, saying aloud, "You forgot your robe today Neville." And then kept walking towards the door to the Great Hall, glancing back to see Neville's rememberall wasn't red anymore. He smiled as he kept walking towards Herbology. Neville should have time to get his robe before class. Today was a flying class day, which Harry enjoyed because he was a natural. Marcus Flint, captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, had heard about Harry natural skill, and had tried to talk to Harry about joining the team next year, since Terrance Higgs, the current seeker, was graduating. Harry said he'd think about it.

During the flying class, some drama happened when Dean Thomas crashed into a wall and broke a leg. After Madam Hooch had forbidden anyone from flying while she took him to the hospital wing, Draco made a comment about Dean's half-blood making him an inferior flyer. Ron and Seamus immediately tried to start a fight with Draco but Harry stepped in between them.

"Enough Draco. Blood has nothing to do with it. I'm a Half-Blood and I'm as good as you!"

Draco glared at Harry, fuming as he said, "You need to be careful Potter, that's not a popular opinion among those in power."

"Then maybe those people shouldn't be in power anymore!"

Draco's eyes widened in momentary fear before he gained control of himself. Slowly, he turned and walked away to stand with the rest of the Slytherins, who looked equally perturbed. Looking back at Ron and Seamus, Harry saw that all the Gryffindors also looked concerned and were keeping their distance. Slowly Harry realized what he had somewhat implied. It was around then that Madam Hooch was back and the lesson resumed. Both Gryiffindors and Slytherins were keeping their distance from Harry. Now everyone thought that Harry was going to take over the Wizarding World when he'd said no such thing.

* * *

Later at dinner, Harry overheard another argument between Ron and Draco. This time they were apparently planning to meet in the trophy room that night to have a "Wizard's Duel", with Dean being Ron's "Second" and Crabbe being Draco's. Having no idea what made a Wizard's Duel different from a normal duel, Harry discreetly asked Gemma who gleefully gave him the details.

"A Wizard's Duel is where two wizards fight with magic. Simple enough, and a 'Second' is a person who takes over for you if you die or become unconscious. But don't worry, Draco's more than a match for that Weasel kid. It's a shame he won't be allowed to actually kill him because of the school's wards."

Harry paled at her words, but managed to hide his displeasure as he thanked her. Glancing around the room, Harry saw that Hermione and Neville had been watching the events unfold. From what Harry figured, Hermione was likely going to try to stop it. Neville was a wild card though, he might leave it alone, tell a teacher, or try to stop Ron. Harry decided to do what he could to stop it from happening too.

Later that night, Harry was sitting in the Slytherin Common Room, waiting for Draco to come down for the duel. It was half-past eleven and he'd still not come from his room. Did he sneak past? Did he chicken out? Slowly Harry stood up and made his Draco's room and knocked on his door quietly. He heard movement behind the door and Draco opened the door a crack a moment later.

"Potter? What the devil do you want?"

"Draco! I thought you were going to the Trophy room! Did you call the duel off?" Harry asked, confused, but hopeful that Draco had been sensible.

"Of course not Potter, but I'm a Slytherin, I'm cunning and I plot." A devilish smile crept across Draco's face. "I told Filch some students were going to be in the Trophy room tonight. With any luck that blood traitor will be out of the school by morning with an old, snapped wand. And that Mudblood friend of his too."

With that Draco shut his door on Harry, leaving him stunned as it dawned on him what was about to happen. Glancing at his watch, Harry turned and sprinted out of the Slytherin common room, the dungeons, and up to the Great Hall. He didn't see any sign of Filch or Norris as he ran, so he kept going till he skidded to a halt in the Trophy Room, where Ron, Dean, Seamus, Hermione, and Neville were all staring at him wide-eyed, obviously paused in the middle of a heated argument.

"Har-?" Ron started to speak before being cut off by Harry.

"Malfoy told Filch! You need to get out of here now!"

Almost immediately everyone started sprinting to the door. As they got outside the Great Hall they heard Filch's voice carrying to them, gleefully talking about catching students. It came from the direction of the Dungeons so Harry couldn't head back to his dormitory, he'd have to double back later. He followed the group as they ran for the stairs. When they hit the second floor, Dean and Seamus broke off and headed down a hall while Harry, Ron, Neville, and Harry went up another flight before turning down a different corridor. It sounded like Filch was still following them so Ron, who was in the lead, turned and tried to open a door to hide in, but it was locked. Without missing a beat, Hermione shoved him aside and said, "Alohomora!" And the door unlocked. The four of them quickly slipped inside and shut the door behind them. They all pressed against the door, listening as Filch went past, wondering where the blasted students went. Soon enough the sounds of his footsteps were gone, and they all breathed a sigh of relief, at least until Harry heard the sound of something big breathing. Turning he saw a giant three headed dog looking at them, drool falling from it's mouth as it started to growl.

"CERBERUS!" He yelled, shoving the others through the door and making them run as they sprinted back the way they came. When they hit the stairs, Hermione and Ron went up while Neville and Harry went down. Neville split away at the Great Hall, running full tilt towards the Kitchens while Harry didn't stop until he was in his dorm room. He collapsed on the floor then, panting as sweat poured from his body. He'd done enough running for a bloody marathon trying to save the others.

The next morning, Draco was fuming silently from his end of the table, having already figured out that Harry went straight to save the others after talking to him. When Ron, Seamus, and Dean entered the Great Hall for breakfast, they thanked Harry as they passed him, looking uncomfortable at thanking a Slytherin, but appreciative all the same. Hermione gave him a small smile when their eyes met, but didn't say anything to him and continued to avoid him like she had since the Sorting. Neville had no trouble thanking Harry for saving him twice that night, saying he was glad Harry wasn't a bad guy, which made Harry feel a lot better.

Soon enough the story would spread through the rumor mill, and everyone would hear some version of the events that night. The common theme though was that Harry didn't like Draco's sneaky plot and foiled it. Whether Harry did it because he was a good person, or he simply disliked such underhanded ways of dealing with enemies depended on who you talked to. It was odd that half the school still considered Harry a bad guy, if an "honorable" one.

Harry just tried to roll with it. He had realized a couple days later that the Cerberus had been in the forbidden third floor corridor, so it was likely one of the traps guarding whatever the small thing Hagrid retrieved was. Now, was the dog the only thing guarding it, or was there more? Probably more, but Harry would figure that out later.

In the meantime, Harry had to deal with what would eventually be called the Prank War of '91.

* * *

A/N: Sorry for the delay, I recently got promoted at work to Department Manager, and I have no idea what I'm doing D:


	4. Chapter 4: The Prank War of '91

Side Story 2

After shutting the door in Potters face, Malfoy frowned. Knowing him, he was likely about to do something stupid. All things considered, that idiot probably should have went to the house of reckless idiots. The young Slytherin sighed heavily. He needed father's advice. He went over to his desk, and flicked his wand at the lantern, and it burst into light. Sitting at his desk, he pulled out his parchment, ink, and quill. He thought carefully for a moment about when he needed to write. He thought deeply on what his father had told him before the year began. Of how the Malfoy family, to stay on top as they always had, needed to account for many possibilities. Lord Lucius, having witness the countless atrocities of the Dark Lord, and heard many times his claims of having gone further than any other wizard in his quest for immortality. Considering the sheet power at the Dark Lord's command, the idea that he died because of a mere baby was always farfetched. Lucius had told Draco that it was possible that the Dark Lord had simply transferred his essence into the baby, as a way to give himself a new, younger body. Considering Potter's personality, that was quickly becoming exceedingly unlikely. However, another theory of Lord Malfoy was that, if such a child did defeat such a powerful Dark Wizard, then he surely had immense, natural dark powers, and was likely to become the next great Lord of the Wizarding World. Of course, Dumbledore would set in his own machinations to turn him into a Light Lord, but it was Draco's job to to make sure he became a Dark Lord. At first, Draco thought his job was easily done, when the Sorting Hat cried out Slytherin, but Potter had consistently proven himself to be anything but. He was intelligent, yes, as he did well in his classes, he was oh so noble, standing up for filthy Mudbloods, and was annoyingly hard working at all he did. He showed traits of all the houses, but until that incident during Flying class, had showed no ambition. Now that it was public knowledge that Potter intended to overthrow the current leadership, those in the know where making plans, vying for his attention and favor, or plotting against him. At least, those at the school's level of plotting were. But soon enough word would spread to the rest of the world and pieces would start moving across the board. Slowly, making sure to write in code, Draco penned a letter asking his father how to deal with Potter. He clearly did not share the Pureblood beliefs, at least for the moment. Should Draco continue to try and gain his friendship and alliance, or should he begin to prepare for war? Carefully Draco used the well-practiced (if comparatively weak because of his youth) encryption spell. He then took his owl, gave it the letter and sent it off to his father.

The next morning, just before breakfast, he got the reply. Amidst the double-speak and encryption, Draco figured out what his father meant to say.

"Stay the course, become his friend. Either make him your general, or become the general of the next Dark Lord."

* * *

The next Monday, Harry sat at breakfast, reviewing his homework to turn in that day. Neville had been happy to help him with his Herbology homework after last week's nighttime events, and Hermione had told him the right page of his book to turn to when she'd passed him in the library for his History of Magic homework. She then promptly disappeared before he could thank her. For Charms and Transfiguration, Harry pretty much had to figure it out himself, but he was good enough at those subjects to figure it out. The only homework assignment really bugging him was the Theory of Magic assignment about making variations of general spells for specific situations. He was also pointedly ignoring all the stares and whispers he was getting. Ignoring that kind of thing was quickly becoming second nature to him, oddly enough. What brought him out of his homework however, was when the Weasley Twins sat down in front of him...at the Slytherin Table.

Harry looked up, startled, barely noticing that almost the entire Great Hall had gasped and gone silent at this.

"Um, hello Fred, hello George." Harry nodded slightly at each of the twins. They looked at each other for a moment, seeming surprised.

"How'd you know which of us was which?" They asked simultaneously.

"Uh...I guessed?" Harry shrugged. He wasn't exactly sure how, he'd barely had any interactions with the twins since the Train, when they'd introduced themselves.

"Weird, anyway!" Said Fred.

"We wanted to thank you for save wittle Ronnekins from Malfoy and Filch."

"Mum would have found some way to blame us for that..."

"It's also good to know that even if you're a baby Dark Lord, you like to play fair."

At this Harry rolled his eyes. From what he'd learned about the twins, there was no way of knowing whether they actually believed he was an honorable bad guy, or if they were simply taking the piss.

"You're welcome for saving you from your mother's wrath." Harry snarked, leaning back and crossing his arms. He looked closely at the twins faces to try and see what game they were playing.

The twins seemed to smirk at each other at this and leaned forward, propping their heads on their threaded fingers, smiling conspiratorially.

"We came to see if you wanted to join us on some pranking."

"We had some ideas in mind, for both Malfoy and Filch, are you in?"

Harry raised an eyebrow at this as he considered for a moment.

 _Hmm, pros? Helping these two Gryffindor pranksters prank known "bad guys" would make the school think more positively of me, that I'm against known Dark people. Cons? I could make some potentially dangerous enemies, and I may be categorized as a prankster and lose most of my credibility as a student. Also potentially upset McGonagall and/or Snape, and that would be...unpleasant..._

"As fun as that sounds, I think I'll have to pass. My life is troublesome as it is without getting into that mess. If we got busted, I'd have to deal with the wrath of Professor Snape, and seeing as I'm not given unfair favor like other Slytherins, I think I'll try to stay on his good side."

The twins shared a quick look, chuckling. "Okay, yeah, that's fair." "An angry Snape is why we limit our culpability when pranking Slytherins." With that the twins stood up and started to leave, waving at Harry as they went. At that point a third year slid down the table to whisper to Harry.

"Dude! What did they want?"

"Uh, what?"

"What did the twins ask you about, man?"

"What? You were right there?"

"Uh? Oh! They used a muffliato or something, no one could hear what you guys were talking about, forgot you're still learning about that kind of stuff. So what did they want?"

 _Oh, okay, I was wondering why there were so comfortable talking about pranking in the middle of the Great bloody Hall. I thought they were just ballsy as hell._

"They were inviting me to do some pranking, I said no because...well, because of Professor Snape. I don't want him angry at me."

"Oh! Okay!" The third year immediately slid away and started whispering to other students.

Harry found himself wondering how this one was going to be warped by the rumor mill.

Looking at the time, Harry gathered all his homework and slung his bag over his shoulder and started walking to his first class. Around the time he got to the main staircase, his left foot slipped for a moment. Catching himself, Harry looked at the ground and saw nothing that he could have slipped on.

"Weird." Harry said, and went about his day. About 200 steps later, his left foot slipped again.

* * *

At lunch time, Harry Potter stormed into the Great Hall, drawing everyone's attention for not only was he being dramatic, he was holding his left shoe in his hand. He came to a stop in front of the Weasley Twins, who were grinning ear to ear. Pointing at them with his jinxed shoe, Harry said, "Fred! George! This means war!"

The entire hall gasped, wondering what the hell Potter was on about, even the teachers looked shocked, even more so when the twins answered.

"You're on Potter!" They said simultaneously.

Harry then turned and left the Hall dramatically, already setting his own plots in motion.

The Prank War of '91 had officially begun.

* * *

When Fred and George left the Great Hall, they whispered to each other, wondering what Harry would try to pull on them. He was only a first year, and was in essence a Muggleborn. The twins had dealt with Muggleborn pranksters before, and were generally never impressed. They got to their next class of the day, Charms, but when they tried to open the door, they found it locked.

"What the?"

"We can't be that early, can we?"

"No, it might be Harry's prank, hah!"

"A simple lock? How weak. _Alohomora_."

Fred tried to open the door then, but somehow it was still locked.

"Hold on, what the heck? How is it not-"

"What are you two doing?" Lee Jordan came up behind the twins, looking at his friends with a smile.

"The door's locked!"

"Even _Alohomora_ couldn't open it."

"Weird." Said Jordan, reaching between them for the door. "Let me see."

When his hand gripped the handle, it turned easily and the door opened, showing a classroom with a couple of the early students looking curiously at them.

"What the hell?" George said, incredulous.

"What are you three doing?" Asked a student inside. "Why were you messing with the door handle?"

"But, it was locked!"

"We couldn't open it!"

"Even _Alohomora_ didn't work!"

The twins looked at each other, worried.

"Are you two alright?" Asked Lee. The twins were always kind of weird, and usually that was fun. But he didn't want them to literally be crazy.

The twins made their way to their desks, whispering about whether this was a prank and how Harry could do it.

When they got to their next class, their fears were confirmed. Another door that was locked to them, and nobody else. As they went around the Castle that day, it seemed many doors were similarly charmed. It took them a while to figure out that Harry must have used a variation of the _Colloportus_ spell that only locked doors against them. And _Alohomora_ , which could open many locked, couldn't work against a specific charm like this. It would require it's own specific counter-charm. It wasn't even a particularly difficult spell to cast, but the fact that Harry figured out how to make the spell was worrisome.

"We might actually have a challenger here, oh twin of mine." One said to the other.

* * *

The next day at breakfast, Harry watched carefully when the twins entered the Great Hall. They made eye contact and gave each other friendly waves, even as their smiles belied insidious intent. Harry was watching them, and they were watching him. It was the twin's turn in the war, and Harry was keeping an eye out for what they would do next. Unfortunately, Harry didn't know yet that Agents were allowed, because Lee Jordan was hidden at the other end of the table from the twins, discreetly using levitation to sneak a small treat, a prototype for an invention the Twins were calling a Skiving Snackbox. Harry didn't see it land in his cereal, nor notice when he ate it. He didn't notice anything was wrong until he dribbled some of his juice. Harry stopped eating and tried to assess what just happened...why was his mouth kind of numb? He couldn't really taste his food, and now he had trouble talking. Crap. They got him. Harry spent the rest of the day unable to taste his food, or speak clearly. He had trouble in his classes because he couldn't cast spells right, but none of his teachers seemed to notice. He did notice McGonagall roll her eyes once though, as if she knew, which she probably did.

* * *

Wanting to retaliate in a similar way, Harry was skimming through his potions book, trying to figure out way to make a magical food item to prank them with. He was doing this in the common room that night, and one point Gemma passed by and offered him some tips. Thanks to her help, he figured out his next prank, and she also offered to help him mix the potion, since it was a little difficult, and the twins were getting help of their own from other people. Accepting her logic, he accepted her help. The next morning she also acted as his Agent in sneaking the treat he'd made into their food. Being two years older than them, she was able to fool them with her better magic.

Harry's prank had been a conditional laxative, that only activated when the twins were aroused and excited, i.e. when they were flirting. Femma had pointed out to Harry that the twins were starting to flirt with girls, and did so often, with varying amounts of success. But with this prank, every time they tried that day, they would be overcome with a desperate urge to defecate and had to run for the nearest bathroom. That evening Harry laughed hard as different Slytherins told him of instances of his prank happening that they witnessed.

* * *

At this point, over the next week, the war fell into a pattern of the twins pranking Harry in some way, and Harry retaliating by doing the same prank, or something similar, in a different or better way. The twins would start putting protections in place against their own pranks, which Harry would have to work around. For example, one morning Harry was trying to talk to Hermione after a Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and she was actually listening to him for once, when the Twins jinxed his pants to fall down, promptly ending that attempt. The twins had then made it so their pants couldn't fall down with magic. Harry circumvented this by paying a sixth year to make their pants invisible while they were flirting with the chasers from their team.

* * *

Over time the pranks would escalate, with some of the pranks defying description. The Weasleys had thought that there was no way the muggle raised Harry could have kept up with them, but they were wrong. Even if they had more magical energy, and more experience and knowledge of magic in general, Harry was very cunning. He used every resource he could, particularly potions, to even the playing field. Potions were ridiculously useful to Harry for the war, in that potions allowed a wizard to invoke powers beyond their normal abilities, if made correctly. And much to everyone's amazement, during potions classes for the next couple weeks, most of the potion-theories and mixtures they learned from Snape had...pranking applications...

Eventually the war was coming to a head, the twins were pulling out all the stops and in his cunning Harry was starting to resort to utilizing muggle pranks, modified with magic to keep up. But Harry was running out of ideas. The war ended a week before Halloween. Harry only had one more prank left, and to him, it was kind of weak. But during breakfast that day, he sat and watched as the Twins entered the Hall. Their heads were a swivel, keeping an eye out for any avenue of attack. Even if Harry looked bummed out, they wouldn't accept this as a sign of weakness, as such things had been subtle plays in their battles. Everyone in the Hall was quiet, and watching. What would today spell? What level of epic prankery did Harry have today. Would it be at breakfast? Or later in the day?

The twins would sit down at their table. At the last second, a whoopee cushion, levitated by one of Harry's agents, swiftly flew under their bums. A magically enhanced fart noise came from them, bellowing and filling the entire Hall. All was quiet, for a whole minute the silence lasted, and the Twins slowly stood up and looked at the prank. They picked it up. What the hell was this?

The first to laugh was a Muggleborn, a second year at the Hufflepuff table. Quickly the laughing spread and the whole Hall, even the Slytherins were laughing. Quite a few of the teachers were chuckling too, or at least trying to stifle their laughs. Slowly, the twins nodded at each other, and then made their way over to Harry, who stood up to face them. By the time the twins were face to face with Harry, the laughter had died down. What were the twins going to do now?

"Mr. Potter."

"You win."

The twins bowed to Harry as they conceded defeat, while at the same time squeezing their whoopee cushions to make a long, drawn out farting noise as they bowed, causing everyone to erupt into laughter again, and the Slytherins erupted into cheers at Harry having won. Harry then collapsed back into his chair and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Thank goodness the war was over, Harry was so completely out of ideas.


	5. Chapter 5: The Art of Trolling

Omake 2

Professor Snape glared down at a contrite looking Harry sitting in front of him. "Mr Potter, do you mind telling me what you were planning to do with..." Snape looked at the note in front of him again. "A roll of burlap, a bag of feathers, two boxes of Every Flavor Beans, and a sheep?"

Snape's eyebrow was raised impressively high. Harry laughed nervously. "Well, it's hard to explain."

Snape palmed his face. This Prank War was getting out of hand. Where did he even get a sheep from anyway?

* * *

The next week was interesting for Harry as he spent a fair bit of his free time hanging out with the Twins. In winning the war, Harry had earned enough respect from the twins that they didn't try to pull him into any of their pranks, but they still shared a lot of the pranking knowledge with Harry, who in turned shared the knowledge (most of which he'd made up himself) that he'd accumulated. He explained to the twins how he'd done some of his pranks, which gave the excitable twins some new ideas. The prank war had also, oddly enough, been good for Harry's reputation, making him seem like less of a Dark Lord in the making if he engaged in an ultimately harmless, and extremely funny game with the Twins.

* * *

"A whoopee cushion?" Fred and George asked, incredulous. They were holding the device that Harry had used on them and looking it over.

"Yep." Harry said simply, bemused at how fascinated they were. It was such a mundane and pathetic prank, that apparently no muggleborn had ever "stooped" low enough to use it on them, much less magically enhance the fart noise to such a ludicrous degree. It still amazed Harry that he had "won" the "war" with such a thing. After explaining, Fred and George easily accepted that the cushion wasn't exactly high end pranking material among muggles but they didn't let that damper their enjoyment of it. Harry meanwhile was looking at some of what the twins were planning to market as "Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes". The Skiving Snackbox treat he was holding was the same one that had been used on him near the beginning of the war, a Nummy Gummy(what they were currently calling it, they had a naming theme and were trying to figure out the best one still), which was a candy infused with a potion anesthetic. Harry was looking at the notes for the Skiving Snackboxes and was suitably impressed by the hurdles the Twins had to overcome to make them. Most potions were meant to be drunk or used as-is, and in infusing the potions into a candy, you ran the risk of the intended effect of the potion changing, so the twins often had to alter their potions into a type of inert state that worked well when infusing into candies, and were designed to only activate their effects when catalyzed by contact with saliva.

"I have a question." Harry said, as he spotted among the notes a T on a potions homework assignment.

"And we have an answer."

"Might not be the truth though!" The Twins chuckled as they turned to Harry.

"With how unfair Professor Snape is to non-Slytherins, and in particular to Gryffindors like you, how are you two so good at potions like this? I was under the impression it was almost impossible to learn anything from him if you weren't in our house."

"Hah, you're right there Harry. Truth be told, most of the other houses have their own Potions-study groups so that people who care can do self-study."

"However we like to do our own self-study outside of those groups, since our interest in Potions is for pranking purposes, not standard home-remedies."

"That said...I heard that over the past month Snape has had a couple classes where he taught you firsties Potions concepts that could be used for pranking, if you had the right mindset." Fred grinned at Harry who turned red in embarrassment.

"Well, I needed all the help I could get..."

"Dude, that's not the point, Snape hates pranks!" George exclaimed, laughing as he clapped Harry on the back.

"The fact that he helped you, took a side in our little war is amazing! Maybe he's not so much of a stick in the mud!"

"Or maybe he really hates us that much!"

"Oh yeah, definitely that." The twins laughed cheerfully together and Harry joined in.

"Considering he's not all that fond of me, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the real reason he helped, as a way to get at you two through me."

With that Harry pulled a couple items out of his pockets and handed them over to Fred and George. "By the way, here's those pranks you asked for. A buzzer and squirting flower. Muggle classics."

Fred promptly put the buzzer in his palm as George set up the flower and they turned to each other to shake hands, with George getting shocked as Fred got hit in the face with a squirt of water. They erupted into peals of laughter. "Maybe dad's more right about muggle stuff than we think!" "He'll love these when we show them to him!"

Harry leaned back and continued to thumb through the disorganized pranking notes of the Twins while they played with their new toys, taking turns shocking and squirting each other while rapid-fire shooting through ideas to modify and improve on them. Eventually Harry found a note that piqued his interest.

"Hey guys, what's this?" He asked as he handed them the paper. Glancing at it they chuckled in embarrassment.

"Oh, that lame thing, it's just a jam spell. We haven't really figured out a way to use it yet."

"In addition to trying to figure out something funny to do with it, we're having trouble using it for safety reasons."

"Safety?" Harry asked, eyebrow raised that the twins who tested out potentially poisonous potions on themselves would be overly worried.

"Yeah, we just like to prank dude, we don't want anyone getting seriously hurt."

"And currently that spell replicates itself when something touches it."

"If someone tried to eat that jam..."

"The results would be bad." Fred moved to crumble up the paper.

"Until we figure out a way so that it doesn't duplicate itself when eaten, we're shelving this idea."

"Okay, another question then, I thought magic couldn't 'create' food, part of Gump's law or something."

"Oh, we call it jam, but that's just its intended appearance, it's technically just a gelatinous paste, it has no nutrients or anything that would make it be considered actual food."

"Ah." Harry was getting used to how some of the vague rules of magic could be circumvented by technical loopholes. Things that the twins thrived on. At that point Harry looked at his watch. "Oh, gotta go. I have Herbology first thing this morning, gotta get to the greenhouses." Harry said, gathering his stuff and shoving it in his bag. He grabbed one of the pieces of toast sitting on a plate nearby and shoved it in his mouth, he'd skipped breakfast to hang out with the twins this morning.

"Oh, Harry, just down the hall here there's a portrait of an old wizard and his pet salamander."

"If you press the right side on the flower design of the frame, it'll open to a secret passage."

"It's a slide that'll take you to a side hall near the Great Hall, you'll get to class with time to spare."

"Oh, cheers guys!" Now he wouldn't need to rush so much. One of the reasons he liked hanging out with the twins was that they seemed to know _every_ secret passage in the school. Harry still didn't understand how they knew so many. Most people treated the secret passages of Hogwarts like secret treasures only to be shared with close friends.

"Also, don't you have History of Magic today?"

"Don't remind me..." Harry groaned before quickly snatching a tossed item out of the air. "What's this?"

"Oh, just a thing we're testing." George smirked.

"It's a daydream charm. We're still testing them out, but we think they'll sell best for History of Magic classes."

Harry looked at the little stick with "Daydream: Dragon fight" written on it.

"How does it work?"

"When you're seated and good to go, break the stick."

"You'll be pulled right into the daydream."

"Alright, thanks, I'll tell you how it works out." Harry and Lee Jordan were some of the few people the Twins trusted with testing out their items(after thoroughly testing on themselves first). With that, Harry left and went down the hall, quickly spotting the portrait the Twins mentioned. A couple minutes later, a smiling Harry emerged into a small hall on the ground floor. Glancing around, he quickly placed himself as being in a hall near the kitchens. At that moment Neville rounded the corner and stopped, somewhat startled to see Harry.

"Neville, how're doing?" Harry said cheerfully, shouldering his bag and motioning for Neville to walk with him. They were both going to Herbology after all.

"I'm fine Harry, what are you doing here though? I thought you'd be coming from the other side of the Entrance Hall, since I didn't see you in the Great Hall this morning."

"I was hanging out with the Twins this morning in the Tower, they showed me a secret passage that dropped me off here."

"Cool!"

Harry and Neville cheerfully started talking about various things as they made their way to Herbology. Todays lesson was supposed to be on a plant called Devil's Snare, and Harry was glad to have Neville as a friend to help him deal with that in class.

* * *

Later on in History of Magic, Harry was thumbing the daydream charm while he quickly poured over the notes, making sure he was up to date on the lesson plan from his self-study. For those that actually cared to pass the class, most read the material on their own time and just slept in class, and Harry was typically one of those students. Hermione was pretty much the only one who tried to stay awake and pay attention during class, and she would generally be annoyed at Harry for sleeping during class. Though he was trying to get back on her good side and get her to talk to him, during History of Magic, he gave her space knowing that she would just be irritable at him because of this. Once sure he was good and ahead on the class assignments, Harry looked at the charmed item. "Dragon Fight, huh? Guess I'll be fighting a dragon." Harry smirked as he took the item and broke it, and then felt the most curious falling sensation.

* * *

Harry felt his massive body hit the ground, a massive earthquake resulting. Slowly he opened his eyes, and saw countless knights in shining armor surrounding him, looking like little rats on the ground. He felt his rippling muscles flex as he slowly spread his wings, sweeping his long tail across the ground as he reared back and released a bellowing roar at the feeble creatures arrayed against him. Most of the arrayed warriors trembled in fear, but two knights alone stood brave. The red-haired twin warriors charged headlong at him, wielding giant golden claymores.

* * *

With a startled jerk, Harry sat up, wide-eyed. He was sitting in his desk in History of Magic. Professor Binns was droning on about some goblin rebellion. Most of the students around him were dozing, with Hermione the only exception(though even she was dropping her head every now and then). Harry was _not_ a giant dragon getting his giant scaly butt whipped by the twins in shining armor. Harry's body shook as the last vestiges of the daydream wore off. Of course they would make a day dream like that...

Feeling very much awake now, Harry looked at his now drool-covered History of Magic textbook. Harry quickly waved his wand and vanished the drool. Most students of the class learned how to vanish drool, as an unfortunate necessity. Opening the book, Harry looked over random pages to make sure it was fine. As he did he came across a chapter that made him stop. "The founding of Hogwarts." Glancing at his watch, Harry still had a bit of class to go before they were done, so Harry started reading about how the founders gathered together and made the school. It was then that Harry learned something that shocked him. Salazar Slytherin was a parseltongue, a wizard who could talk to snakes, and that this ability was inherited. He further learned about the Chamber of Secrets, and couldn't help but facepalm as he reached the end of the chapter.

 _I'm the Heir of Slytherin, aren't I? God damn it..._

* * *

"A-are you okay Harry?" Hermione asked in the next class, Defense against the Dark Arts. Normally Harry would be jumping for joy that Hermione was talking to him, but he was feeling very disgruntled at the recent revelation.

"I'm just dandy." Harry growled, causing Hermione to flinch. Harry immediately felt bad, but didn't know what to do. It's not like he could just tell her that he was the Heir of Slytherin. If felt like if he did, she would probably never talk to him again. Hell, most people would probably love to have their suspicions about Harry being the next Dark Lord validated in such a way. No, Harry needed to keep this under wraps. "It's nothing you did Hermione." He whispered, hoping she wouldn't take offense.

"O-okay Harry." Hermione turned back to the lesson, where Quirrel was stuttering over an explanation on different types of Zombies. Hermione of course raised her hand and helped him out. Harry meanwhile went back to his brooding.

* * *

Later that day during lunch Harry was talking to the twins, snarking at them for their idea of a "dragon fight", but ultimately giving the daydream his approval. While in conversation though, he overheard something other Gryffindors were talking about. Turning to listen, Harry heard that apparently Ron and Hermione had had an argument during the previous period they shared together. One of the girls mentioned that Hermione had been crying in the bathrooms since. Harry glared at Ron, who noticed and quickly tried to look away. He didn't seem to want to take responsibility for his actions. Harry decided to talk to Hermione during Astronomy prepwork that afternoon, which all first years shared together.

* * *

After his afternoon Astronomy class, Harry was making his way to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast. He was worried because Hermione hadn't shown up. Spotting a Gryffindor first year, Parvati Patil, Harry approached her and tapped her shoulder to get her attention. "Hey, Patil, do you know where Hermione is?"

Parvati smiled at Harry's question, apparently approving of his interest in her wellbeing (the friendship issues between Harry and Hermione were of much interest to certain people) quickly saying, "Yeah, she's in the bathroom, still crying after what Ron said!" Harry frowned, worried that Hermione was that upset. "Oh, by the way, I know Ron's a bit of an idiot, but don't do anything too bad to him okay? We're giving him plenty of punishment on our own."

That made Harry frown for a different reason, that Patil basically expected some kind of over the top retribution, but he decided to just shrug it off and agree. He went onward to the Great Hall, hoping that Hermione had in fact went to the feast so he could talk to her there. If she wasn't, then Harry was planning to slip out and go to the bathroom to find her.

* * *

A short while later, the Halloween feast was in full swing. Hermione still hadn't shown up, and thinking it over, Harry realized that Hermione would probably be too upset to come down to it. Not wanting her to miss out, he discreetly piled himself up two plates of food, and, after getting which bathroom from Patil, took his plates and sneaked out of the Great Hall. He was sure that someone had probably noticed him, but he felt that no one would really care. Harry made his way up the marble staircase, heading to Hermione when he heard the distant sound of footsteps. Turning from the top of the stairs, he spotted Quirrel sprinting towards the Great Hall. Harry chuckled as he imagined the stuttering professor being embarrassingly late for the feast. Oh well. Harry continued onward towards Hermione.

A couple minutes later, Harry slowly opened the bathroom door. He felt extremely embarrassed to be entering a girl's room, but he pushed that down for Hermione.

"Hermione? Are you in here?" Harry called out as he heard the sounds of her crying.

"H-Harry?" After a moment, the stall at the end opened and Hermione's head poked out. Her eyes were red. "T-this is the girl's bathroom Harry...is that food?"

"Yeah, I'd heard about what happened with Ron. You know you're missing the feast right?"

"I don't care..." Hermione said, looking down. "After all, I don't have any friends to have fun with according to Ron."

"Hermione, you know I want to be your friend. Look, I figured you wouldn't want to go to the feast tonight, so I brought it to you." Harry brought the food over and handed Hermione a plate, who looked genuinely surprised and touched.

"Thank you...Harry." Hermione looked down at the food for a moment before looking up at Harry. "Harry, why did you join Slytherin? I...after what you said on the train I thought you were going to be in Ravenclaw, and I thought you'd wanted to be in Ravenclaw with me..."

Harry let out a long sigh. He had avoided this topic, even as he'd tried to get Hermione to be friends with him again, but he guessed he couldn't avoid it anymore. He went over to sit against the wall on the ground, looking at his plate of food as he thought about how to explain it. Hermione joined him there a moment later.

"If only it was simple to explain. I sometimes wish I had been in Ravenclaw instead, but I'm in Slytherin because that's where the hat sorted me. You know that I was raised by muggles right?"

"Yeah, which is one of the reasons I'm surprised you're in Slytherin."

"Well, if you knew more about my aunt, uncle, and cousin, you'd be less surprised."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Harry grimaced for a moment before finally letting it all out. He explained to her about his life with the Dursleys, the living hell he'd been in, the ordeal with the letters, Hagrid, coming to this school, and the Sorting. He told her how despite being sorted into Slytherin, Harry felt he couldn't tell anyone there about his past because they'd either use it against him in their plotting and schemes, or they'd advocate outright killing the muggles for daring to treat a wizard that way. After he was finished, him and Hermione sat in silence together for a moment.

"Harry...I'm sorry for how I've treated you, I was upset."

"I noticed."

"Sorry. If you're okay with it, I'll-" THUD...THUD...THUD...Hermione cut herself off as she heard the sound of a steadily increasing thudding noise, like really heavy footsteps.

Slowly, Harry and Hermione turned to look at the bathroom door, which hung slightly open. The footsteps drew nearer, and after a moment, a lumpy grey-skinned head peeked in, spotting them. It squeezed itself through the door, damaging the door frame slightly as it did until a full grown mountain troll stood before them, grinning stupidly at the little snacks in front of it.

"What...the...fuck..." Harry couldn't help but swear at this unexpected turn of events. He slowly stood up as Hermione did the same. To his side, Hermione was shrilly whispering random facts about mountain trolls in rapid-fire, as if one of those facts might help them. Harry meanwhile was rushing through his mental supply of more practical spells, but most of what he knew would be very useless against the magic resistant troll. Still, he slowly drew his wand, hoping he'd come up with something, because if he didn't, they'd soon be a bloody paste on the ground.

 _It's technically just a gelatinous paste_

Harry's eyes widened as he snapped his wand up, pointing it at the Troll's head, yelling, " _REPLIJAM_!" Praying that it would work.

Splortch. The troll was frowning now. A small purple blob of jelly was on its left cheek, just below the eye. _Shit!_ Harry thought to himself, his body sagging, drained. That was apparently a higher level spell than he realized, as he felt so exhausted he was sure he couldn't do it again, and he'd missed his intended target of the Troll's mouth. _Welp, we're going to die._ Harry mentally groaned, distressed at having wasted his energy.

With agonizing slowness, the troll reached up to wipe the jam away with its forearm. But...when he pulled his arm away, the blob was still there, hell, it was smeared across half the troll's cheek and along its arm. The troll blinked, as it realized that the jam was still there. It tried to wipe again, and again, all that happened was that more of it appeared. The troll was starting to get upset now as it kept wiping, then it was getting scared. It dropped it's club as it started frantically wiping at the jam that was spreading all over it.

Realizing what was about to happen, Harry grabbed Hermione's wrist and sprinted past the troll and out the door. He quickly slammed the door shut and cast a repair charm on it to fix it so it shut properly. "Hermione cover your ears!" He yelled at her, glad that she obeyed him. Behind the door Harry could hear the troll start to yell in its panicking. He could hear the difference when the jam started to get in its mouth and it started gagging on the rapidly replicating jam. Just a few scants seconds after that Harry started hearing the sound of flesh tearing apart, and Harry's mind vividly imagined the jam getting into the trolls lungs and stomach and replicating uncontrollably there. Shortly after, however, the noises came to a stop, and Harry realized that the troll was most likely dead now. And he'd killed it. Harry felt like he was going to be sick.

From down the hall, several teachers suddenly appeared, sprinting towards them.

"Harry! Hermione! What the devil do you think you're doing! Why aren't you in your dormitories!?" Professor McGonagall screeched at them as they came over to them.

"Better question professor, why is there a Troll in the castle!?" Harry snapped back, not in the mood to take blame for anything he wasn't actually responsible for.

"You! You weren't at the feast?! Professor Quirrel told us there was a Troll in the dungeon!"

The image of Quirrel from before, sprinting towards the Great Hall flashed in Harry's mind. He'd been coming from the dungeons...

"Hermione was upset, she'd been in the bathroom and I came to cheer her up..." Harry said, stepping over to stand next to Hermione. "I'd left the feast early to find her...but the Troll found us."

McGonagall's eyes widened in fear before they darted around, taking in the scratch marks on the floor from the troll dragging its club, which lead to the bathroom they were next to. "Did..did you trap it in there?" She asked, holding up her wand and getting ready to battle. The teachers behind her similarly readied up.

"Not...exactly...Professor...I'm sorry, I panicked. I think I did something bad..." Harry looked scared. This wasn't something he could really avoid.

McGonagall looked curiously at the first year, before slowly stepping over to the door, she opened it and peeked her head in before quickly drawing back and shutting the door. "Mr Potter...What did you do?" She sternly asked him.

"I...I used a replicating jam spell that I'd learned from the Twins. They said that it was too dangerous for pranks, and it was all I could think of in the moment."

"Mr Potter. You are telling me. That you killed. A full grown mountain troll. With a _jam_ spell?"

Harry's head hung low at her words. "It is dead? I killed it?" His voice was quiet.

Seeming to realize that Harry was upset, McGonagall's demeanor softened. "Mr Potter, I'm sorry if you think you're in trouble. You're not, I'm just worried because you could have been hurt, or worse. Come, I think that all of us need to head to Professor Dumbledore's office to talk about this."

Before heading off to do that though, McGonagall went back to the bathroom, and pointed her wand at the mess inside. " _Finite Incantatem_."

After that, Harry, Hermione, and McGonagall went to Dumbledore's office while some of the other teachers were assigned to clean up the bathroom.

* * *

Author's Note:

Hi, sorry for the delay, I know it's been almost a year, but a lot of stuff, and drama has been happening. But at least the new chapter's here right?

Happy Birthday Chris


	6. Chapter 6: Meeting the Headmaster

Side story 3

After McGonagall left, the other teachers were quick to pass the buck onto Quirrell, leaving him to take care of the Troll's corpse. And though he stuttered and sputtered and made it look like he'd rather do anything else than be there, once they were gone a calm came over him. He looked upon the gore and viscera of the Troll, and smiled.

"It's magnificent Master..." His voice was a whisper. He could feel his master looking through his eyes to see what he saw.

"Indeed it is." A gasping voice came from behind the Teacher's head. "The boy has potential..."

Quirrell nodded as he pulled out his wand and went to work cleaning up.

* * *

Harry and Hermione followed after McGonagall as she lead them to the third floor and through a corridor to a gargoyle, where she stopped and said, "Strawberry Ice Cream." Which was apparently a password as the stone creature jumped to the side, revealing a spinning stone staircase. The professor shuffled the two children onto the staircase where they were brought up to a pair of oak doors.

McGonagall gave the door a sharp knock, shortly after which Dumbledore called out, "Come in, Minerva."

She pushed the door opened and ushered Harry and Hermione in, where they both gasped at the sight. The room was large and round, and there were countless shelves covered in a variety of strange and bizarre objects, making various erratic noises. There were numerous bookshelves with a variety of ancient looking books, and on top of one of those bookshelves sat the Sorting Hat, which seemed to sort of turn and look at them. Sitting on a perch was a bright red bird that made Hermione gasp again as she whispered, "That's a phoenix!"

Dumbledore, who was leaning over and examining a silver object that emitted small proofs of colored smoke looked up then, taking in the two students and teacher before him. His eyes lingered for a short moment on Harry, causing the boy to feel as if he was being blamed somehow before Dumbledore addressed McGonagall, "My devices tell me the intruder is dead, what happened?"

"Well," McGonagall tried to start, glancing down at the small children in front of her. "It seems that Mr. Potter and Ms. Granger here weren't in the Great Hall when Professor Quirrell told us about the troll, they were in a bathroom on the second floor-"

"Were they?" Dumbledore suddenly cuts in, a smile coming to his face as he raised an eyebrow at Harry and Hermione, causing all three people in front of him to blush deeply as they started stammering out responses.

"Ohmygoodnessnoweweren't-"

"I swear it's not that!"

"Albus!"

Dumbledore quickly tried to calm everyone down, laughing as he motioned with his hands for them to bring it down a couple notches. "It was just a joke, perhaps a bad one, but you should all be less tense now." Still smiling, Dumbledore addressed Hermione, "I noticed you weren't at the feast, and I saw when you left Harry, with two plates of food. I take it that something happened to you that made you not want to attend, and Harry decided to comfort you?"

Hermione, still blushing, nodded at Dumbledore's deductions. "I-I had been in an argument with Ron Weasley, I had tried to offer to help him study after our Herbology class, but he...he made fun of me for being a know-it-all. He made fun of how hard it is for me to make friends. I got upset, and I had been crying in the bathroom."

Dumbledore then looked at Harry, as if imploring him to pick up and continue.

"I had noticed Hermione's absence during lunch and asked about it, and I learned a bit about what happened. I had wanted to talk to Hermione during Astronomy prep work, but she didn't show up then either. When she wasn't at the Halloween feast, I decided to bring the feast to her and snuck out. When I got to her, we...talked...about some things...but then the troll came into the bathroom we were in. I panicked and hit the troll with a...with...with a prank spell, sort of, and it ended up killing the troll..." Harry' head was bowed with shame at having killed something, though Dumbledore's gaze held no judgement behind his eyes.

"A prank spell? From the Weasley Twins, I presume?"

Harry's eyes widened in fear for his friends, "It's not like that! I wasn't supposed to see that spell and they had no plans to use it because they knew it was dangerous! Please don't get them in trouble!"

Again Dumbledore made a calming motion with his hands, stopping Harry from saying much more. "I understand your concern for your friends, it is admirable, but as Headmaster I have to follow up on this fully. Now, may I ask what this 'prank spell' was and how it worked?"

Harry looked sullen, hoping he wasn't about to get his friends in trouble as he explained, "The spell is _Replijam_ and like it sounds, it makes a glob of paste that replicates when something touches it. The Twins couldn't figure out a safe way to use it so they had benched it, but when I was hanging out with them today, I saw their notes on it."

Dumbledore nodded as he listened. While McGonagall seemed queasy at the explanation of the spell, as she imagined the troll's fate, Dumbledore seemed unfazed as he kept eye contact with Harry. But with that done, he turned to Minerva and asked, "Who is taking care of the Troll's corpse?"

"I asked Professor Quirrell to handle it. I figured if the Troll had survived and managed to regenerate after that, he'd be most suited to taking care of it."

Dumbledore nodded amicably, "A wise choice Minerva, thank you. Now, may I ask you to escort Ms. Granger to her dormitory?"

McGonagall paused for a moment as she noticed that the request did not include Harry, but after giving Dumbledore a stern look, that said a lot unspoken that Harry didn't catch, she nodded. "Yes Albus. Come along Ms. Granger, lets get you to bed. Oh, did you ever get to eat the food Potter brought you?"

"No professor, I didn't." Hermione answered as she headed out of the office, glancing at Harry with a complicated look.

"Then I'll have something brought to you from the kitchens."

With that, Harry and Dumbledore were alone. For Harry a moment of awkward silence followed, though Dumbledore seemed much more at ease as he leaned back and stroked his beard, thinking.

"You look so much like your father Harry, except for your eyes. You have your mother's eyes." Dumbledore smiled warmly at Harry, who blinked in confusion.

"Er...yeah, I think Hagrid told me that when he picked me up from the Dursleys." He muttered, uncomfortable with the sudden change in direction.

"Ah, yes. Well, I get the feeling you'll hear that a lot over the years, especially as you get older."

"Lovely," Harry muttered, wondering if it would be more awkward or annoying if it keeps happening. "Hey, does that mean you knew my parents?"

Dumbledore nodded sadly. "Of course, they were Head Boy and Girl when they were here, and I was Headmaster back then too. And then during the War with Voldemort, they were part of my Order of the Phoenix, which fought against the Dark Lord."

Harry stiffened at this, standing straighter as he looked at the Headmaster.

"Your parents were very brave. They thrice defied Voldemort himself and lived. I see much of them in you. Their bravery, your mother's intelligence, your father's trickiness."

"Pft." Harry testily blew out a breath of air. "I'll give you that I'm smart and tricky, but how in the world am I brave?"

"You defeated a troll at eleven years old. That's pretty brave Harry."

"I-I had no choice!"

"Most first years would have frozen where you took action. The very fact that you raised your wand to defend yourself and Ms. Granger makes you braver than many ever become. Tell me though, how did you come to decide to use a...jam spell?"

"Uh...well...I remembered from Professor Quirrell's class, when we were generally covering a bunch of Dark Creatures that Trolls are immune to most basic magic. I haven't tried a stupefy spell yet, which I pretty sure would drain most of my magic, but I knew that a stupefy would barely tickle it. I knew I had to use a spell with a physical effect of some kind. And I just...remembered that spell from this morning. I remembered Fred and George crumbling up that note saying that it was dangerous so they couldn't use it. And...then I did it. And...it worked..." Harry is starting to look visibly ill at this point, as his mind clearly envisions the ending of that Troll. But just before he could start to lose his dinner, a clear song filled the air.

"Thank you Fawkes." Dumbledore said softly to the singing bird.

Harry felt his unease fading away thanks to the Phoenix's song. He closed his eyes for a moment as he felt his guilt melt away. After a while, the song ended, and Dumbledore would wait a moment before continuing.

"You have also been brave in other ways Harry. I have been keeping a close eye on you since you first entered the Great Hall on the first day of school. I watched your Sorting closely, as the fate you chose has a great effect on us all."

Harry's gaze turned stern at this, as he wondered what Dumbledore meant.

"This is a little known fact, but as Headmaster I am able to listen in on the Hat's deliberations, and I technically have the authority to override its decision if I feel a student is better suited for a different house. I have never used this privilege before, but I came so close to making the Hat put you in Gryffindor."

"Why-why didn't you?" Harry asked, stunned by this.

"Because I feel that it is up to you to choose your fate, whatever that may be. Still, I'm surprised you chose Slytherin. I know that you were far more educated about the different houses than most Muggleborns, so choosing the unpopular House is another thing that I think makes you brave."

"Makes me stupid more like." Harry grumbled.

Dumbledore chuckled as he shook his head. "No no. Although, it does put you in a unique position. Since you're in Slytherin, and of a decidedly more noble spirit than its typical members, I think you might have a chance to help that house redeem itself."

"Redeem itself?"

"Indeed. Think about it Harry, in the two months you've been here you've already gained quite a reputation. Your saving of Mr. Weasley and the others from the Trophy Room debacle and your successful prank war with the Twins despite being within Slytherin have given you a sort of grey reputation. And you've already expressed dissatisfaction with how things are currently done, with regards to blood purity at least, that if you wanted, you could start influencing the current generation of youths to not be so hateful." Dumbledore sighed wistfully, "But that's a bit much to put on an eleven year old. Honestly, I think you should focus more on having fun while you can."

Harry slowly rolled the idea around in his head, thinking about it. After a moment he sharply remembered the thing he'd learned earlier that day, causing him to twitch as he realized that Dumbledore probably knew, since he was keeping such a close eye on Harry. Harry would then sigh and slump slightly, feeling defeated as he muttered, "Yeah, I suppose as the Heir of Slytherin I can."

"The what of what?" Dumbledore asked, suddenly sitting up straight and staring hard at Harry.

"Uh, I thought you already knew? You seemed like you were leading into that" Harry said, suddenly nervous. Did he just get himself in trouble?

"You're not the-hold on Harry, what makes you think you're the Heir of Slytherin? How do you even know that that's a thing?"

"I-I read about it in _Hogwarts, A History_. I read that Salazar was a Parselmouth, and that snake-talking is hereditary, and I can talk to snakes. I...once accidentally set a snake on my cousin..."

"Oh..." Dumbledore said softly, as he seemed to think something over, before seemingly settling himself on a decision. "I hadn't intended to talk to you about this until you were older, but I suppose I should point out that your supposedly hereditary ability didn't get either of your parents into Slytherin."

Harry blinked as he thought about that. It was true, but didn't Harry have the chance to be in a different house? He somewhat chose Slytherin, maybe whichever parent(his pureblood father was most likely) had simply chosen Gryffindor.

"Further, I think you should know that Voldemort, who broke when he tried to kill you, was a Parselmouth."

Again Harry was quiet again for a moment as he processed that. "What are you saying?"

"I have long suspected that when Voldemort's Killing curse failed to kill you, and instead broke himself, that any number of improbable events could have transpired. That a fraction of Voldemort's power would become yours."

"Voldemort's Power?" That...was quite a revelation.

"But I didn't expect you to get that ability in particular. Hm...perhaps you can put that ability to use. Like I said, you are in a unique position to enact reform for Slytherin house, especially if you, as the 'Heir of Slytherin' push for your housemates to let go of their prejudices and unify with the other houses. Of course, I would prefer if you could enjoy your school years as much as you can, while you can."

Harry silently considered all of this. It was nice to know that he wasn't actually the Heir of Slytherin, and he was wondering what other powers he might have gotten from Voldemort. The idea of making Slytherin a less hateful place appealed to him, though he had absolutely no idea how to go about doing that, with or without using the "Heir of Slytherin" title. But it wasn't something he had to deal with right away. Like Dumbledore said, he could enjoy his time at Hogwarts for a while before worrying about stuff like that. After all, he was only eleven. But something was bothering him.

"Professor?"

"Yes Harry?"

"Is Voldemort dead?"

Dumbledore was quiet as he looked at Harry for a moment. There were complicated emotions in his eyes that Harry didn't understand.

"I'm sorry Harry, but evil such as Voldemort doesn't die easily. I know for a fact that he's still around. He's less than the meanest ghost right now, but he's still a threat. And he's still plotting his Dark Crusade."

Harry nodded. It was about what he expected. Hagrid had similarly said he didn't think Voldemort had enough human left in him to die. "Professor, may I go to my dormitory now?" He asked, suddenly feeling very, very tired.

With a small smile, Dumbledore nodded, making a small motion with his hand to cause the door to his office to open. Harry turned and left the office. For a long moment afterword, Dumbledore stroked his beard, thinking how to use these new revelations in his plans.

* * *

Author's note:

So today is my birthday! But you all are getting the present!


	7. Chapter 7: Quidditch and Secrets

Omake 3

Soon after Harry left, Dumbledore was left alone with his thoughts. After a time, he would look up at the Sorting Hat, who seemed to be looking back at him. "Sometimes I wonder if you put him in the right house."

That hat was silent for a moment before it suddenly yelled out, "GRIFFINPUFF!"

"...Might need a little tune up." The old man muttered as he shook his head.

* * *

The first week of November was an interesting one for young Harry. Again, the rumor mill went into overdrive over the Troll incident and everyone's opinion on The Boy Who Lived was up for debate again. For example, the Slytherins were generally of two mindsets about the event, the majority of them, the ones with little in the way of actual cunning, only saw that Harry saved a Mudblood. The rest were more concerned about Harry being only a first year and managing to kill a full grown Mountain Troll, supposedly with a _single spell_. The Griffindors however were at this point all for Harry Potter. Regardless of the fact that Harry had left the feast before the troll announcement for unrelated reasons, he still fought a Troll for Hermione. Ravenclaws generally liked Harry for looking after one of their own, both before and after the troll's involvement. And Hufflepuffs already generally liked Harry thanks to Neville advocating for him, so they only liked him more.

All in all, Harry was happy with how things were turning out. Ron had apologized to Hermione in the Great Hall with no prompting from anyone else that Harry was aware of. Hermione had, for the most part, accepted his apology, and was now also talking to Harry. It seemed that trying to comfort her and then saving her life had gotten him on her good side.

With the first Quidditch match of the year coming up, Ron started teaching Harry all about Quidditch, and especially about the Chudley Cannons. Harry found his friend's avid support of the team bemusing considering how much they apparently sucked. After learning more about the teams, Harry found himself torn between supporting Puddlemere United and the Tutshill Tornados. And then there was the issue of house teams. Despite the vast majority of his housemates being...well...pricks, Harry felt he had to at least somewhat support the Slytherin team. Meanwhile with his family having a colorful history of being important members of the Griffindor team, Ron was very vocal in his support of his team. Which Harry and Hermione were both okay with, up until Ron started trash-talking the other teams. Harry and Hermione eventually developed a habit of whoever was closest at the time smacking him upside the head and telling him to chill out.

Draco had started making measured attempts to socialize with Harry at that point. While it was clear that he disapproved of Harry saving Hermione for blood reasons, he had the sense to not say as such out loud. And to a degree, Harry had appreciated his company. He was one of the only Slytherins to listen when Harry tried to explain that his killing the troll was as much luck as anything, though Draco had quietly mentioned to Harry that his ability to think up a plan and act on it rather than being frozen in fear was arguably the most impressive part, which shocked Harry for being similar to what Dumbledore had said.

With their new civility in their interactions, Harry eventually felt comfortable asking Draco questions about certain things.

* * *

"Hey Draco." Harry nudged the blond awake during a particularly boring History of Magic class.

"Mmmmwha...?" Draco slowly woke up, turning and giving Harry a light glare for bothering him.

Harry had his history of magic textbook open to the part about Salazar, the Chamber of Secrets, and Parseltongue and was showing it to Draco.

"Hey, I was kind of curious about our House and was reading ahead, and I wanted to ask you if you knew much about Salazar Slytherin."

Draco blinked a couple times, seeming to consider this opportunity. On the surface he seemed annoyed at having his nap interrupted but he also seemed pleased that Harry was interested in this subject. "Of course I know a lot about Salazar. My family has always been in Slytherin, and he was the first one to advocate that only Purebloods should come to Hogwarts."

Harry nodded, having expected this answer, "Right, well I was curious about this Parselmouth thing. The book makes it seem like this is special or something."

"Of course it's special, only Salazar and his descendants can speak it." At this point, the odd train of the conversation seemed to fully wake up Draco. "Wait, why are you asking about that?" He asked, trying not to sound suspicious as he asked.

Harry had to resist the urge to smile as Draco was following Harry's plan perfectly. Harry had considered Dumbledore's advice about the Heir of Slytherin thing, and had decided to try and see if he could use it to nudge Draco's way of thinking in any significant way. If Harry could use his Parseltongue ability to make Draco of all people less bigoted, then Harry would see about extending the plan to changing all of Slytherin house. At this point it should probably be noted that Harry, while clever, was still new to "plotting" and as such, had not properly considered how his plan could fall apart.

"Well, I once set a snake on my cousin so when I learned I was a wizard, I kind of thought that was a normal thing. Are you sure only Salazar's family can do it?"

Draco's eyes were now as wide as saucers, his mind was racing. For a couple minutes, neither boy said anything, and the room was filled with only the sounds of Professor Binns droning on, and students snoring.

Eventually though, Draco would speak to Harry. "Are you certain Potter? Was it just the one incident?"

That made Harry paused for a moment as he genuinely considered it. "Well, yeah, I guess. It was the only time I'd ever seen a snake, cuz I'd never been to the zoo before. I also accidentally made the glass that held the snake disappear."

"When you set the snake on your cousin, did you order the snake to do so?"

"Not really, when the glass disappeared, the snake kind of did its own thing. It nipped at Dudley but was more focused on escaping."

"Did you talk to it and it talk back to you?"

"Uh...I talked...at the snake for a while. I don't remember if it talked back to me, I think I remember it thanking me for freeing it."

"Hm...so it was accidental magic that made the glass disappear...you might not have actually spoken to the snake, and might have just used some form of animal command magic on the snake, or it was just acting like a normal snake." Draco seemed to be relieved. "After class, let's go into an unused classroom to test real quick."

"Test how?"

"I know a spell for summoning a snake, you'll talk to it and see if you can make it do anything. If you can, you're a Parselmouth, if you can't, then that whole incident was just coincidence."

Harry nodded at Draco's plan, now curious if he'd jumped the gun with interpreting the zoo incident as Parseltongue. Maybe it was something else.

Soon enough Harry and Draco were out of the class and in an unused classroom between their History of Magic Class and their Defense Against the Dark Arts class next period. They didn't have much time and Hermione had almost stopped them, asking why Harry was entering an empty room with Draco (and judging by the expression she had when she asked, Harry thought her mind was going in absolutely the wrong direction).

"I'll explain later, Draco's helping me with a thing." Harry tried to give Hermione an excuse. "I swear we won't be late for next class."

Hermione frowned, "Be sure you aren't. You don't want to lose Slytherin House Points do you?"

"Of course not." Harry said, shutting the door and doing a quick Colloportus on the lock. Turning back to Draco behind him, the boy was already casting his spell.

" _Serpensortia_!" Draco declared firmly, doing a firm double sweep of his wand and causing a snake to burst forth from its tip. Harry whistled, very impressed by the spell. It was a conjuration spell, which was a difficult branch of Transfiguration. Conjuring snakes and birds was supposed to be the easiest conjuration spells, but it still spoke volumes about Draco's skill to be able to do it as a first year. "Alright Potter, try to talk to the snake, make him lay down or something."

Harry nodded as he looked at the snake looking at him. The snake seemed calm, having not been ordered by its master to attack or anything, though by no means did it seem friendly. After a moment of looking at the snake, Harry finally opened his mouth and tried to talk to the snake.

" _Can you understand me?_ " He asked, feeling an odd sensation in his throat. In his peripheral vision he saw Draco tense up.

" _I understand_." The snake answered simply.

" _Okay, then lay down_." Harry ordered. The snake seemed confused for a moment, turning to look at Draco, and seeming to find no contradictory order from his creator, he laid down flat.

" _Vipera Evanesca."_ Draco suddenly cast a spell that caused the snake to disappear in a flash of fire. _  
_

"Woah, Draco, what the hell?"

Draco seemed paler than usual and seemed to be fidgeting slightly. "Yep, you're a Parselmouth Harry. Let's hurry and get to our next class, I need to think about this."

Harry was worried about how Draco was acting, but there was little he could do as they did indeed need to hurry to their next class, which they barely made it to on time. As worried as he was though, Harry couldn't help but laugh as he saw the subject of the day on the chalkboard.

"F-for t-t-today I thought w-we'd cover t-t-trolls...considering r-recent events..." Quirrell said nervously to his class.

* * *

After Quirrell's rather informative lesson on trolls, Harry was in Magical Theory with the Hufflepuffs, and that day they were learning about different magical catalysts and why wands were the catalyst of choice for modern wizards. Apparently in older times Staves were used more commonly, which allowed for greater amplification of magic and more powerful spells, but they were unwieldy and hard to hide. Similarly, rings used to be a common catalyst, but were a weak one, unable to handle stronger spells. Wands were a healthy middle ground, at least as long as they were made right.

The main part of that day's lesson was on how different wand cores and wood types interacted with different spell types, and Harry was working with Neville and Susan Bones on that day's assignment. Part of the assignment was telling each other about their wands, and how they were supposed to help or hinder different spells. Susan had started off, proudly introducing her Cedar and Dragon heartstring wand, and Harry introduced his wand, leaving out what Ollivander had said about the "Great but Terrible" thing. When Neville introduced his wand, which he said he inherited from his father.

"Oh, like how Ron's wand came from his older brother?" Harry asked, curious about that. Did not every witch and wizard get their own wand?

"Oh, is that why Ron has trouble with Transfiguration and Charms?" Susan asked, looking thoughtful.

"What? What do you mean?" Harry asked.

Susan chuckled as she answered his question, "Wands choose the wizard Harry, I'm pretty sure Ollivander tells that to everyone. Wands generally don't work well for wizards that aren't their proper owner. Although I think there are supposed to be some exceptions."

Which would explain a lot, Harry figured. If both Ron and Neville were using someone else's wands, that would explain a lot about their difficulty in the practical magic classes. And it would make sense that Ron would be stuck with a second-hand wand, since his family wasn't exactly well off, but, "Why are you using your father's wand Neville? Why didn't you get your own?"

Harry almost immediately regretted asking when he saw the upset look on Neville's face as he vaguely said that his father wasn't well and his gran had wanted him to use his father's wand.

Harry frowned at this. He knew Wands were relatively pricey, with his own having cost 7 galleons. But Neville and Ron, and who knows who else, shouldn't have their entire magical education stunted because of something like that. He made a mental note to try and see if he could help them get new wands.

* * *

The day of the Quidditch Match between Gryffindor and Slytherin finally came, and Harry was excited to watch his first match. During breakfast he listened as his fellow Slytherins chatted about the game, despite Oliver Wood's best efforts to hide it, his team's new Seeker had finally been revealed. Apparently third-year Kenneth Towler was the new Seeker. He owned his own Cleansweep Seven and most figured he'd give Terence Higgs a good run for his money.

At one point in the morning Ron and Draco almost got into a fight over the upcoming match, with Ron saying that the Slytherins were likely to cheat, and Draco saying that Ron shouldn't come up with lies just because his team never wins. Harry managed to get them to not fight, instead suggesting that they make a two part wager on the match, with Ron betting that Gryffindor would win unless the Slytherins cheated, and Draco betting that Slytherin would win without cheating. Harry made sure that Draco understood that if Slytherin cheated at all during the game, that meant he would lost the bet and was firm about enforcing it. Draco agreed with much grumbling and glaring at Harry, and after he walked away Harry turned to join Neville and Hermione as they made their way to the Quidditch Pitch. He wanted to support his team, but he didn't like the general environment of his house, and wanted to be around more neutral parties for the game.

The game was very exciting for Harry, and much to his surprise, the Slytherins did not cheat. He had a feeling that Malfoy had spoken with Flint and said something to him. And Slytherin still won! It was a rough game, Wood was almost impossible to get a quaffle past, but they still managed to score, and ultimately the score after Terence caught the Snitch was 240 -190. After the match, Ron grudgingly admitted that Malfoy won the bet, and thanks to Harry's prodding after the match before meeting with Ron, Draco was graceful about it.

* * *

"Potter." Marcus Flint, Slytherin Quidditch team captain, approached Harry in the common room later that night, looking very aggravated. Poking Harry sharply in the chest, he growled at the first year saying, "I hope you don't make a habit of trying to get us to change our tactics. We win just fine our normal way, and if you have a problem with that, you can stay the hell off my team next year."

Only confused for a second, Harry quickly glanced over near the fireplace where he last spotted Draco, and there he was, looking paler than normal and worried. This was apparently not part of his plans. Crabbe and Goyle meanwhile seemed to be enjoying the show. Bringing his gaze back to the taller Slytherin, Harry sneered at him replying, "What's the matter? You won the match fair and square, and the other houses are actually respecting your team for once. But I guess you like being considered a weak-willed cheater."

"You arrogant little brat!" Flint roared, grabbing Harry by the collar of his robes and lifting him bodily up.

Harry grimaced in pain from the action, but otherwise kept his eyes square on Flint's glaring. "If you can't win without cheating, then why would any self-respecting Slytherin want to even be on your team?"

"Shut your mouth!" Flint yelled, pulling his arm back and was about to punch Harry in the jaw when a cold voice rang out from the entrance.

"Mr. Flint, do restrain yourself." Flint froze, his eyes wide with fear and everyone looked over at Professor Snape at the common room entrance. "Strange as it might seem for a know nothing first-year, he has a point. Let him go."

Suddenly it seemed Harry was made of acid or something with how quickly Flint tried to let go of Harry and get away from him. A moment of silence filled the Common Room, as everyone nervously waited to see why Snape had come here. After sweeping his glare across the many students, Snape stepped over to the bulletin board and stuck a paper onto it.

"Now if you children are quite done being childish, it's almost winter holidays. Those of you who are returning home for the winter, please sign your names on this sheet."

Snape left the common room after his announcement and it was a good couple seconds before anyone dared breath. Flint no longer seemed to be motivated to threaten Harry, simply stalking off to his room. Malfoy soon after approached Harry and reluctantly apologized for Flint's actions, having not meant for Flint to get upset at Harry.

"But besides that, Potter, what do you plan on doing over the holidays?" Draco asked.

"Well I'm not going back to my relatives, that's for damn sure." Harry stated with a hardness in his voice.

Draco seemed to smirk at that. "And here I thought you were as much of a muggle-lover as Dumbledore."

Harry glared at Draco for that, but only said, "What do you want Malfoy?"

"Over the holidays, while most of the students are gone, you'll have free reign of the school, right? You should look for the chamber of secrets!"

That caused Harry to raise an eyebrow. "Really, and how do you supposed I go about doing that?"

"The Chamber is supposed to only be able to be opened by the Heir, which means it can only be opened by Parseltongue, explore the school and look for anything that's a snake and try talking to it."

"Oh sure, that won't make me look crazy, hissing at random paintings and statues." Harry rolled his eyes.

"That's why you use the holidays Potter, when you can avoid being seen."

Harry sighed, "Fine, I'll see what I can find."

Draco smirked at that. "While you're doing that, you'll probably find other cool secrets, share that with me too, okay?"

That made Harry chuckle, "Sure, but I might keep the best secrets for myself, you know."


	8. Chapter 8: The Mirror of Erised

Omake 4

Soon after leaving Malfoy and Potter in that classroom, Hermione made her way to her next class, where one of her friends noticed the look on her face.

"You alright Hermione?" MacDougal, another Ravenclaw first year asked.

"I'm fine, I'm just worried about Harry, I just saw him and Malfoy go into a classroom together an-"

"OH MY GOD!" MacDougal and a couple other girls started squeeling.

Startled, Hermione looked around and realized the way that her friends were taking that. "No, I didn't mean that!"

But it was too late, the girls had already lost their minds. The squeeing could be heard all the way down in Hogsmeade.

* * *

With a groan, Harry woke up and rubbed his eyes. _Happy Christmas Harry_. He mentally grumbled to himself. For a brief moment his mind went back, to all the horrible Christmases of the past, of his life with the Dursleys. He sat up in his bed, eyes still closed, for a brief terrible moment wondering (as he did most mornings) if it was all a dream and when he'd open his eyes all he would see is his cupboard under the stairs. But when he did, Harry was shocked by the veritable mountain of presents sitting at the foot of his bed.

"Bloody Hell..." Harry was stunned. Even as he harbored worries about getting nothing, he knew that he was going to get at least something. But this? Harry hopped out of bed and quickly moved over, grabbing the first one off the top.

"Hagrid..." The package had brown paper, and the note on it brought tears to Harry's eyes as Hagrid thanked Harry for still having a good heart. Harry opened it and was surprised to find a hand-carved wooden flute. He chuckled as he recalled that he'd seen Hagrid carving something two weeks ago when he'd introduced Hermione to him, and that was probably this. Harry brought the flute up and tried to play a note, but it came out off tune. "Heh, I'll figure it out later." He said with a smile.

He looked at the next package on the pile, which happened to be the smallest one of the bunch. "I think I know who this is from." Sure enough, it was from Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. A 50 pence coin. "How generous." He didn't bother reading the note, he didn't care.

The next one was from Hermione, much to his delight. It was a box of Chocolate Frogs and a note wishing him happy holidays. In her note she also mentions that she's been doing some research on the muggle side of things about Nicholas Flamel, and she thinks she found something, but it's about some french philosopher from the 14th century so she's not sure. "Philosopher? Dammit now that's tugging at the back of my head even more than when I heard Nicholas' name. Whatever." Harry carefully folded the note from Hermione and put it on his desk. He'd put it somewhere safer later.

Next gift from the stack was from Ron, it was a secondhand book about the Chudley Cannons history, that made Harry laugh nervously. That boy was way too devoted to a bad team, and worse was trying way too hard to get Harry to support them. Still, he couldn't think badly of Ron, especially after his stunt the other day, where him and his buddies Dean and Seamus managed to stop that fourth year bully. They were the current "Heroes of the Week". Some were even starting to coin the phrase "Golden Trio" to refer to their group. They were doing Gryffindor proud, being reckless, but brave and noble.

The next one was a gift from the twins, a box of Every Flavor Beans, and some Skiving Snackbox prototypes for if Harry wanted to skip out of a class. "Nice." Harry had no intention to skip out on any classes, but you never know when something might come up.

The next couple presents from the pile came from other Slytherins, being an assortment of obvious bribes for his friendship, but some of them were still useful or neat; A pair of enchanted mirrors for long distance communication, a foe-glass, a Wizard's Chess set (which startled Harry when he picked up a rook and it said hello), an Exploding Snap set, and a book _Pure-Blood Directory_. Regardless of the reasons behind them, Harry still felt very warm as he looked at all the gifts.

One of the last gifts in the pile was from Draco, which Harry excitedly opened. He was surprised at first that the gift seemed to be a book, but when reading its title, " _Occlumency: A Necessary Arte_ " he remembered his conversation with Draco about how if they were going to start looking for ancient secrets in the castle, they were going to need to protect their secrets in their mind. Legillimency wasn't likely to be an issue a first year would have to worry about, but when dealing in secrets and intrigue, you could never be too prepared. Also with the book was a Mokeskin pouch, which made Harry's jaw drop. A while back Harry had asked Draco about different kinds of magical items that were common or uncommon in the magical world. Seeing as he'd already made such an investment with his trunk, Harry was curious about other things he could invest in and had been interested in the Mokeskin pouch Draco had mentioned. Apparently Draco had noticed and made a note to get him that. Harry carefully opened the attached note to read it after:

 _Dear Mr. Potter,_

 _I hope you like the gifts I got for you Harry. I wish I could see the look on your face for the Mokeskin pouch, haha._  
 _I also went ahead and got you the Occlumency book, you should be able to get through the basic exercises by the time I'm back._  
 _Good luck with that project of yours, I hope you learn a lot._  
 _And don't worry about getting me anything in return, a Malfoy like me already has pretty much everything._

 _Sincerely,_  
 _Draco Malfoy_

Harry chuckled at the letter, yeah, the Mokeskin pouch was great. And he liked how it was okay to blatantly mention Occlumency in the letter, but Draco had to be subtle about the "project". Draco was dead certain that all of Harry's mail was filtered through Dumbledore's eyes so certain secrets had to be kept out of letters. Harry hadn't told Draco yet that Dumbledore knows about the Parseltongue thing. But apparently it wasn't terribly rare that some students would want to learn Occlumency, though typically students wait until fifth year or thereabouts before attempting.

That was when Harry noticed a present that gave him an odd feeling. He took the note on it and read the short letter.

 _Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well._

That was...succinct, and intriguing. Harry quickly pulled out the gift, a silvery cloak that felt ethereally smooth to the touch, and Harry's jaw hit the floor. Among the 'uncommon' things that Draco had told him about, were invisibility cloaks, and from what he could tell, this was an heirloom, which meant it had to be one of the higher quality ones, as most only lasted about a decade after the disillusionment spell is cast. Harry quickly went to his mirror and pulled it on, watching as he disappeared. And there was no blurring! Draco had said that even the highest quality invisibility cloaks made today would have at least some blur along the cloak's edges, but this one had none.

 _I...suddenly wish I could ask my dad about this..._

The bitter, painful moment only lasted for a moment before Harry took off the cloak. He couldn't spend all day in here. There would be time to think about things later.

After all that, Harry sorted his presents, putting some into his trunk, and some into his mokeskin pouch (he was not letting his dad's cloak out of his reach), which he put in one of his cloak's pocket. He finished getting dressed and made his way to the common room, planning to head to breakfast. He paused briefly as he passed the bulletin board, and the various notes on it, some of which where Happy Christmas notes to Slytherins in general, most left by the ones who had went home for the holidays. He smiled as he passed them. It was a common belief that there was little actual friendliness in Slytherin house, as most outsiders viewed Slytherins as mean-spirited and back-stabbing. And to a degree, Slytherins did invoke this image to outsiders, for various reasons. But there was truthfully plenty of solidarity and camaraderie between Slytherins, provided no conflicting plots or schemes were causing issues.

Harry said hello to a sleepy fifth year that was in the common room, waiting on his friend to get ready as he passed through the entrance and made his way to the Great Hall. He ended up meeting with a couple Hufflepuffs in the Entrance Hall who greeted him cheerfully as they entered the Great Hall.

* * *

Christmas day was one of the best days of Harry's life. Most of the day was spent in the Great Hall with the other students, with a couple breaks for snowball fights in the courtyard. The Dinner Feast was amazing, with mountains of delicious foods and Wizard Crackers. By the end of the feast Harry was wearing a rear admiral's hat and had finally managed to beat Ron in a game of Wizard's Chess. Near the end of the feast the twins started bugging Ron about something who begrudgingly came over to Harry, offering him a package.

"Hey, Harry. You probably noticed me and my brothers wearing these sweaters, it's a bit of a family tradition. And...my mom wanted to make one for you too, but I've kind of been sending her mixed messages about whether or not we're friends..."

Harry smirked for a moment, thinking about the ups and downs he and Ron had had.

"She sent the present to me with a note for me to decide whether or not to give it to you, so here it is. Happy Christmas Harry."

"Thanks Ron." Harry said, happily opening the gift and putting on the emerald green sweater with an H on it. The gift also had a box of fudge, but it looked only half full. Harry gave Ron a questioning look, who shrugged sheepishly.

* * *

That night, after everything about the happy day was done, Harry found himself holding his father's cloak and feeling its smooth texture between his fingers. The note had told him to "use it well" and he had promised Draco to try and find the Chamber of Secrets. With this cloak, sneaking around was going to be ridiculously easy. With a flourish, Harry donned the cloak and made his way into the night.

All things considered, Harry started his search in earnest in the dungeons, but after a half-hour, Harry ran out of things with snakes on them to hiss at. None of the statue or engravings had responded and the paintings that had snakes didn't seem to respond to parseltongue. Harry worked his way up to and throughout the ground floor and then the first floor, making a brief visit the the Restricted Section of the Library on the first floor. Even though he could potentially get access to all these books in his later years if he took the right classes, for now it was all 'forbidden knowledge' and Harry was sorely tempted. For now though, he just looked at the titles (that he could understand anyway) and made notes of some books he would come back to read on later nights.

Harry continued to work his way up, and despite a little hiccup with a ghost on the second floor near a girl's bathroom, managed to stay hidden and quiet, though he continued to have no luck. Around midnight Harry was making his way through the fourth floor, which was mostly classrooms, so there weren't many paintings or statues to check. Still, Harry at least took a peak in every classroom, but was stopped cold when he saw something strange in one.

It was an unused classroom, apparently, as all the chairs and desks were in a pile against the wall, and in the middle of the room was a mirror with a golden frame and an odd inscription on it. Harry smirked as he walked over to it, wanting to look in a mirror and see no reflection, but when he stepped in front of it, he nearly yelped in panic as he spun around to look behind him, but there was nothing there. Looking back at the mirror, it still showed what he'd seen. Harry, and a lot of people that he'd never seen before, but hurt his heart to look at, especially the man and woman right next to him.

"Mum? Dad?" Harry whispered, and tears started flowing down his cheeks as the man, his father, nodded, and his mother waved.

* * *

Two nights later, Harry was once again in front of the mirror, gazing at his family and wishing from the deepest part of his heart that he could talk to them. He'd lost track of how much time he'd spent in front of the mirror, but he didn't care. He didn't care about finding the Chamber of Secrets either, what did something like that matter compared to finally getting to know about his family?

"Here again Potter?"

"OH BUGGER!" Harry yelped as he jumped to his feet and spun around to see Professor Snape looking at him with a pitying look. "Professor! I was jus-"

"Spare me the excuses Potter..." Harry went silent and managed to look penitent. There was a pregnant moment of silence between the two, before Snape stepped forward, moving up to stand next to Harry, where he glanced at the mirror. With a sigh, Snape started talking, "I see you have, like many others, been enraptured by the 'mysteries' of the Mirror of Erised. Since this is your third night in a row, I assume that by now you've figured out what it does, yes?"

"It..." Harry started, pausing for a moment as he collected his thoughts. It was tricky to think of how exactly he wanted to word it, but he said, "It shows what we 'desire', doesn't it? That's what Erised is backwards."

"Indeed, though it's not just things that we desire. As the Headmaster explained it to me, it's the 'deepest, most _desperate_ desires of our hearts' that it shows."

"Is that why it hurts so much?"

That question seemed to startle Snape for a moment as he gave Harry a questioning look. "What...You don't have to answer if you don't wish to Mr. Potter, but...what do you see?"

"My family...my mom and my dad, and I think the others I see are my grandparents and other relatives. I..." Harry paused for a moment, finding it hard to speak but pressing on, "I always wanted to know who they were..."

Snape seemed to be lost for a moment as he searched for something to say, finally he started speaking, as if repeating someone else's words.

"Many men...have wasted away their lives in front of this mirror...but it offers neither knowledge nor truth. I...advise you not to look for it again Mr. Potter, as it will be moved tomorrow. You should go off to bed now Potter." His eyes fell upon the invisibility cloak clutched in Harry's hand for a moment. "Try not to do anything that loses Slytherin House Points."

Harry nodded, glad that Snape wasn't going to take his cloak away. With one last glance at the mirror, Harry turned to leave, but stopped at the door. "Professor Snape?"

"Yes?" Snape was staring into the mirror, a pained look on his face.

"What...what do you see in the mirror?" Harry regretted asking the question the moment it came out of his mouth as the room suddenly felt ice cold and a shiver went up Harry's spine, as if someone had just walked over his grave.

"Potter. I advise you to think carefully before the next time you ask a man what the deepest most desperate desire of his heart is. _Goodnight_!"

Harry sprinted all the way back to his dorm room, scared for his life after his incredible blunder.

* * *

Author's Commentary: Finally got out this chapter, the last part was a bit hard to write, sorry, but I hope it's worth it. I've set up a poll on my profile for one-shot ideas, if you like my other one-shots, feel free to toss a vote for one of them that sounds interesting.


	9. Chapter 9: The Chamber of Secrets

Side Story 4

After a minute, once both parties were sure Potter was gone, Dumbledore dispelled the disillusionment on himself, shimmering into sight.

"Thank you for doing this Severus."

"Don't ever ask me to do something like this again Albus." Snape snarled at the Headmaster, venom dripping from his words, his eyes momentarily filled with murder. But then the sadness returned and Snape was looking back into the mirror, pain in his face. "I don't think you will ever understand how you have hurt me today."

In the mirror, the scene was much the same as it was the first time he'd looked into it. Lily was there, by his side, happy and alive, and between them was their child. Only now instead of a daughter that looked like Lily, now a son stood there...looking like Harry.

* * *

For the rest of the winter holidays, Harry was in a lethargic funk. Despite Snape's warning, Harry still went back to the classroom to see if the mirror was there, but it was gone like he'd said. He knew that he should just continue his search for the Chamber of Secrets, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. One thing that made him chuckle though was when the normally clueless Ron asked him if he was okay. After that Harry had made an effort to at least look like he wasn't brooding. Unfortunately, the few girls who had stayed at Hogwarts over the winter had already spotted his brooding and when everyone came back, the rumor mill exploded for some reason. Apparently a brooding Harry was pure gossip fuel. Harry tried his best to ignore the swooning first and second year girls when he passed them.

When Draco returned one of the first things he asked was about his luck finding the Chamber, and was frustrated when Harry said he'd been distracted.

"Oh come on, it's not like Filch is hard to slip past if you've half a brain, Potter."

"It's not that, slipping past him is even easier than you think thanks to a Christmas present I got."

"Present?"

"Yeah, look." Harry pulled out the shimmering cloak and draped it over one arm, making it disappear.

"Someone gave you an _invisibility cloak_ as a bloody present?" Draco gaped at it as Harry chuckled.

"Well, more like returned it. Supposedly it belonged to my father and this secret person returned it to me."

"Returned it? They were holding onto this for ten years?" Draco looked at Harry's arm again, squinting and seeing no blur. "Did they maintain the disillusionment charm? Cloaks made from Threstral or Demiguise hair eventually darken."

"I don't know, probably?"

"But if you got this, searching the castle should have been easy! What happened?"

Harry hesitated for a moment before explaining the incident with the Mirror of Erised and Snape. Draco chuckled a bit at the end of of the story.

"Yeah, asking Snape what he saw in the mirror was a pretty dumb move Potter." But then Draco got serious as he thought about it. "The Mirror of Erised? I think that's one of the Artifacts of Atlantis, not one of the more powerful ones, like the Goblet of Fire, but it's still pretty impressive. Making enduring magic like that is much harder in today's world. And I think it had other powers than just showing what you desired...but those abilities still related to desires somehow. I don't know, I'd have to ask my father if he knows."

Harry shrugged at this, "Don't worry about it, it's not like I'm going to see the mirror again. Hey, tonight after dinner, let's go exploring with my cloak."

Draco brightened up at this. "Cool, should we bring Crabbe and Goyle?"

"Eh..." Harry chuckled nervously, "While I think there might be enough room under my cloak, I think it'll be hard to sneak effectively with four people bunched up under it."

Draco laughed as he took the cloak and held it up to see how big it was. "Yeah, it looks like it could cover maybe four of us first years if we stooped. It looks like it was made for a single grown adult to use."

Harry nodded, and they made plans about where to search.

* * *

A couple weeks later, Harry and Draco entered Draco's room, where Crabbe and Goyle were waiting. When they looked up, even they could tell from the looks on their faces that Harry and their boss hadn't had any success.

"No luck then?"

"None, we even went back over all the areas that Potter covered on his first run and didn't find anything."

Harry sighed as he folded up the cloak and put it back into his pouch. Harry was honestly a bit surprised that Draco trusted this whole Chamber of Secrets business to his minions(there was no point pretending they weren't minions, it had apparently been prearranged by their parents), as they didn't seem to be the brightest bulbs (an idiom that confused Draco) but apparently they were loyal. They were reading (slowly) through various books about the Chamber of Secrets, such as theories, rumors, and supposed anecdotes.

"Did you two find anything?" Harry asked, sitting down on the edge of Draco's bed while Draco took a seat on a sofa.

"Not much, sorry. I found a thing about the incident fifty years ago. Apparently the last time the Chamber was opened, that Hagrid got blamed for it. They snapped his wand and everything because someone died."

That left Harry stunned as he went over it in his mind. Hagrid had mentioned something about being expelled, was that it? Hagrid did seem to love scary creatures, but the idea that one of Hagrid's pets would kill someone seemed farfetched. About as farfetched as the idea of Hagrid being the Heir of Slytherin and speaking parseltongue.

"Aren't you friends with him?" Draco asked, wisely refraining from referring to Hagrid as he typically would. He had no positive opinions about Hagrid, but as long as Harry did and he was trying to get on his good side, there was little point in verbalizing them.

Harry nodded slowly, "Yeah, I'll ask him some questions..."

* * *

The next Friday after classes, Harry made his way down to Hagrid's. That morning during mail call, he'd asked Hedwig to bring Hagrid a message saying he'd been over, which seemed to make the snowy owl happy. As he approached, he spotted Hagrid sitting on a barrel outside his house.

"'Ey there 'Arry, got yer message." Hagrid waved.

"Hey Hagrid! Thanks again for the present, I really like it!" Harry smiled brightly. He loved that flute, though he didn't seem to have much talent for it. Still, he was making progress and had learned two simple tunes so far.

Hagrid chuckled, looking extremely pleased at Harry's words.

"Did ye come by 'cause ye wanted lessons?"

"Actually...um...me and some friends were doing some research on Hogwarts history stuff, and we found a thing about something that happened...fifty years ago..." Harry quickly became uncomfortable from how uncomfortable Hagrid seemed to get.

"'Arry, I-I don't want to talk about tha'."

Hagrid was already trying to shut down the conversation. Trying to think fast, Harry spotted a garden snake slithering through Hagrid's garden, which Harry quickly hissed at it, " _You, come here!_ "

Hagrid's eyes bulged at Harry's hissing, and more so when the snake crawled over to him and into his hands.

"Hagrid, I'm a Parseltongue, apparently a gift from Voldemort, and if you help me find the Chamber of Secrets, I might be able to prove your innocence for what happened. But I can't do that if you won't talk to me."

Hagrid was stunned, but he wasn't telling Harry to drop it anymore.

"Do you know who actually opened the Chamber?"

"It...it was Riddle, Dumbledore told me that Tom Riddle became You-Know-Who, and that it was him what killed Myrtle..."

Harry nodded, not terribly surprised that Voldemort would somehow be the actual culprit, but then his brain crashed for half a second before he almost shouted, "Moaning Myrtle!?"

Hagrid nodded sadly. "Aye, poor Myrtle, people were always picking on her for somethin' or other. They found her dead in a bathroom, like she'd been scared to death."

"Bathroom? Wait, the one she still haunts?"

"Aye, it's an unfortunate habit of ghosts, to haunt where they died."

And that's when it clicked in Harry's head, that in his searching of the castle, the one spot he couldn't really search was Moaning Myrtle's bathroom because of the hissy fit she through when she thought a ghost was trying to mess with her (actually an invisible Harry).

"Thanks Hagrid, I think I know where the entrance is now!"

"Wait! 'Arry, what about Slytherin's monster? It's too dangerous!"

"I'm a Parseltongue, I'm sure I'll be able to control it." Harry said with a smirk as he sprinted back towards the castle.

* * *

A short time later, Harry came to the bathroom and went in, seeming to startle Myrtle who was floating by the stalls.

"Wha-what's a _boy_ doing in here? Don't you know this is the girl's bathroom?!" She asked, seemingly indignant at first as she flew right up to Harry's face, before suddenly switching gears and looking pissed. "Are you here to make fun of me?!"

"No! I hate bullies, I'd never make fun of someone! I wanted to ask-" Harry cut himself off, causing Myrtle to give him a funny look.

"Ask what?" She nearly screeched, making Harry flinch.

"Um, bugger, I...I'm not sure if this is something that's rude to ask a ghost, sorry. I was going to ask about how you died..." Harry mumbled, embarrassed and hoping it wouldn't upset her. Much to his surprise however, her cheeks seemed to become more opaque, which he realized on some level was how a ghost blushed.

"No one's ever asked me that before..." She whispered, looking pleased for a moment. "But, why do you want to know?" Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Ah..." Harry hesitated only for a moment before opting for honesty. "When you were killed, my friend Hagrid was blamed. I think I know who the actual killer is, and I'm trying to follow a lead that might help prove his innocence, and maybe help you find justice."

At this point Myrtle was looking skeptical, "You're not trying to help me 'move on' or some shite like that are you? I've had enough Muggleborns try that crap."

"Um, no, I actually hadn't thought about that...but you make it sound like that's not an option?" Harry questioned.

Rolling her eyes, Myrtle explained, "A ghost is born when a witch or wizard refuses to 'move on' at the moment of their death, there doesn't need to be any kind of 'unfinished business' for it to happen, as far as I know. When I died...I was scared of what was through...that thing...I refused to go 'beyond' and now, like all ghosts, I am barred from going through. I'm stuck here, for the rest of eternity as far as I know."

Harry was quiet for a moment as he absorbed this, a particular train of thought coming up and being put down. A hope he hadn't even realized had been sitting in the back of his head was crushed. "So, there's no way to talk to my parents..."

Myrtle sighed, pinching the bridge of her ghostly nose. "You damn Muggleborns...No. There's no credible magic for summoning the dead from the afterlife, and even if there was, I'd advise you not to do it, especially if it'll make them stuck here like me. The dead are not meant to be in the world of the living. Even fairy tales that talk about bringing back the dead talk about how unhappy those spirits are. Try reading the Tales of Beedle the Bard. It's commonsense for wizarding people."

"Okay, thank you Myrtle." Harry was now deep in thought, at least until Myrtle snapped her fingers, getting his attention back.

"Weren't you here to ask about how I died?"

"Oh, right! I'm sorry. Hagrid said you were found in this bathroom, do you remember what happened?"

Myrtle rolled her eyes at Harry, but then thought about it. "I remember I was in that stall over there," Myrtle pointed, "Crying because someone had made fun of me again. I'd heard a noise, and hissing I think, and a voice I thought was a boy's. I had stepped out of my stall to tell him off, and the last thing I remembered was a pair of big, yellow eyes, over there." Now she pointed at the sink. "The next thing I vaguely remember was the arch, and then I was back here, roughly a week after I'd died and Hagrid was expelled."

"Thank you Myrtle." Harry smiled at the ghost before walking over to the sink and looking it over. It didn't take long to find the snake on one of the faucets. "Hah, _open!_ "

Harry quickly stepped back and Myrtle gasped as the sink opened up, revealing a hole leading deep into the ground. "Okay, Myrtle, can I ask a favor?"

Myrtle eyed the young boy suspiciously, "Depends on what it is."

"Can you not tell anyone about this? I kind of want to find out what's in the Chamber of Secrets before I share it with anyone else. It'll be our secret."

Myrtle paused for a moment as she realized a couple things, "Wait, hold on a second, I thought you were a Muggleborn, are you the Heir of Slytherin? How does that work?"

"Ah, well, technically I'm a Half-Blood, Pureblood dad and a Muggleborn mum, but they're dead, and I was raised by Muggles. But I am in essence a Muggleborn in how little I know about the Wizarding World."

"Oh, okay." Myrtle hummed for a moment, thinking, "What's your name again?"

"Harry Potter. Nice to meet you Myrtle." Harry said, moving to hold his hand out to shake hers, before stopping himself and laughing nervously, "Sorry."

To his surprise, Myrtle giggled, "That's fine Harry. I'm not sure about keeping this a secret though. This is related to why I died, and I'm still cross about that."

"Right, like I said, it's just a favor, you don't have to if you don't want to. If you do tell someone, you should probably tell the Headmaster first."

Myrtle giggled again, "Okay, I'll keep your secret for now Harry." She looked down into the tunnel. "You're going to go in there, aren't you?"

"Was planning on it, yeah."

"Be careful Harry, though, if you die, you're welcome to share my bathroom with me."

"I..." Harry blanked for a moment, "I have no idea how to respond to that."

Myrtle started laughing then, greatly enjoying young Harry's reaction. Shrugging, Harry dropped into the hole, hitting the slide and having to suppress the urge to laugh as he slid deep into the bowels of Hogwarts.

* * *

After landing in a pile of bones, and making his way through a door with snakes on it (" _Open?_ ") Harry found himself in a large chamber with serpent columns coming out of the water along the sides of the path, and at the end of the path was a giant statue of a bearded man.

"Hello? Er, I mean, _Hello?_ " Harry called out, having to take a moment to correct himself to speak Parseltongue, in case that was important. Which seemed to be the case as the mouth of the statue opened up and a giant snake started slithering out.

" _You ssshould avert your eyesss, young one. My gazzze is death_." The snake hissed out as it dropped to the floor, splashing the water before rising to look down at Harry, who was averting his eyes at the ground. Harry instantly recalled Quirrell's brief lesson on Dark Creatures at the beginning of the year, where he'd went through basic information on virtually all known Dark Creatures. This was a Basilisk. Bloody Hell! That explained what happened to Myrtle then. _"You're the youngessst one to find my home yet."_

 _Wait, what? Did the Heirs of the past not tell their descendants where to find the Chamber? Huh, maybe its a test, to see who's worthy, you have to figure it out on your own._

" _I'm actually proud of myssself for figuring thisss out_." Harry grinned, daring to let his eyes follow the snake's body up to it's neck, but no higher.

" _Asss you ssshould be. Tell me little one. Will you be the one to purge thisss ssschool of the mudblood filth?_ "

Harry hesitated for the briefest moment before answering. " _Not for sssome yearsss to come. I ssstill have much to learn before I risssk thisss ssschool closssing_."

In his peripheral vision, he saw the snake nodding as it did a hissing laugh. " _The lassst Heir sssaid sssomething sssimilar when he told me to sssleep after killing the girl_."

" _Ssso are you the sssecret of thisss chamber, or the protector of itsss sssecrets?_ "

" _Both, little one. But the ancient sssecrets I hold for my true massster's heir mussst be earned. I will not give power to you lightly, little one_."

Harry nodded, that made sense. Stories in both the muggle and wizarding world told of how dangerous it was to gain power without earning it. Salazar, one of the founders of Hogwarts, would likely know this lesson well, and have ingrained it into his pet to prevent his heirs from doing anything stupid before they were ready.

" _I'll come here asss often asss I can. I'm eager to learn_."

" _We'll sssee little one_."

" _How do I get back to the entrance?_ "

" _Go to the ssslide, sssay 'up'._ " The serpent was returning back into the statue to rest as it spoke, leaving Harry to make his way back.

* * *

A short time later, Harry landed back in the bathroom, the slide having somehow levitated him back up when he'd hissed 'Up' at it.

"Harry!" Myrtle cried out, happily flying over from her stall. "Well? What did you find?"

" _Close_." Harry hissed first, causing the sink to close back up before talking to Myrtle. "The creature is a Basilisk. That's why you died the moment you met its eyes."

"I see." Myrtle looked contemplative for a moment. "Thank you for telling me Harry. I take it the creature is still alive?"

"Yeah, I have some degree of control over it, it had asked me if I was the one who would 'purge the mudblood filth', but it didn't seem to mind when I said not yet."

"Are you going to tell the Headmaster now? He could probably have the creature killed within the day."

"Ah, well, see..." Harry became uncomfortable, realizing that if he wanted to learn the magic secrets the snake held, Myrtle would have to let him do that. "The Basilisk apparently has a lot of Salazar's lore, which he teaches to Heirs as they come to Hogwarts and find the chamber. If the Basilisk is killed, that's a lot of magic secrets that will be lost. But...I understand that you would want it dead, so..."

Harry paused before meeting Myrtle's eyes. "Can I have your permission, to let the Basilisk live, at least until I've learn everything it can teach me?"

Myrtle floated there, thinking, she looked over the boy, who she admitted to herself was cute. She did want the creature to be killed at some point, but after fifty years of waiting, she could probably wait a while longer, especially since... "You realize that if you're going in and out of that chamber to talk to that snake, you'll be coming and going out of _my_ bathroom a lot, right?"

"Of course." Harry said with a nod, not yet seeing where she was leading with this.

"Which means you'll be spending a lot of time with me, since it would be rude to not talk to me when you're coming and going."

"That's true." Harry admitted, now starting to see it, somewhat.

Myrtle grinned now, "And you don't have an issue with that? Talking to me?" She watched Harry closely as he spoke.

"I don't see why I would. You've been...pretty nice actually. I've only heard a couple rumors about this place, but it doesn't seem like you're anything like what's said."

This seemed to make Myrtle very happy, as she could tell he was being sincere. "Great! I can't wait to spend time with you Harry!"

Myrtle's happiness made Harry smile as well, glad that she wasn't...well...'moaning' like her nickname. She honestly did seem to be a nice enough ghost.

"One thing though, Harry. I get the feeling you're not the type of boy who pays much attention to gossip." Harry nodded firmly at that. "Hehe, well, one condition for our 'arrangement' is that I'd like you to pay attention to the gossip and rumors and other stuff happening around school, so you can talk to me about that stuff when you're here."

"I think I can do that, if you'd like." Harry agreed, before glancing at his watch. "Ack! How is it already 6 o'clock!? I gotta get to dinner Myrtle. I'll probably be back either tonight or tomorrow to see what the snake will teach me."

"Okay Harry, enjoy your dinner, see you soon!" She positively cooed at Harry, waving as he left.

As Harry made his way to the Great Hall, he quickly came to a couple decisions. First off, he wasn't going to tell anyone, not the Headmaster or Draco that he'd found the Chamber. Even if he wasn't a proper Heir, he somewhat felt like it was rightfully his secret to keep. This of course meant that Harry needed to master his Occlumency as soon as possible. He was collecting important secrets in his mind, and they needed safekeeping.

Things at Hogwarts were getting interesting.

* * *

Author's Commentary

OMG, another chapter already? It's like I've got a muse or something, lol. I actually seem to have a lot of drive for my HP fic at the moment, let's hope it keeps going. If I keep this up I could finish year one within a month or two. I had a bit of a stumble while writing this chapter, as I debated whether or not Harry would, or should tell Dumbledore/Draco about the Chamber. I had originally planned to have him tell both, but I realized that issues could come from that. I need Harry to learn magic from the Basilisk to help explain some of his future growths in knowledge and power, but Dumbledore would likely have the snake put down asap if he learned about it. And Draco, while a good Slytherin, might not be the best person to share secrets with. Especially if Draco were to learn that the snake has ancient magic lore that its teaching Harry. Draco will pretty much demand that Harry share that knowledge with him, and wouldn't hesitate to blackmail Harry if he tried to refuse. But Myrtle is the trickiest bit, since she sits right there blocking the entrance most of the time, Harry would need to have some kind of agreement with her, and since in Canon Myrtle does actually crush on Harry, I figured that I might have Harry pretty much accidentally woo her into keeping his secret. He's still a relatively oblivious first year, but later on he'll realize what's going on.

Responding to Reviews:

Duellist: That is pretty much exactly the reaction I was going for when I wrote that chapter, lol.

TinySlippers: That should come up in the next chapter, which I think will ultimately cause a lot of changes for both Ron and Neville's magic abilities.

Fast Frank: I'm not sure what you mean about the AU thing, Hogwarts was established in 993 A.D. according to the wiki and that's what I'm working based on, and I'm not sure if I've said anything to contradict that.


	10. Chapter 10: Valentine's Day

Omake 5: Chamber of Parties

Harry laughed as he slid down the entrance. When he landed at the bottom, he found himself standing on a pile of rat bones and...beer bottles? Odd. Shrugging, the boy made his way through the tunnels until he found a large metal door with a number of snakes on it, and an odd bass sound coming from behind it.

"Um, okay, that's not totally ominous...oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. _Open_."

A snake slithered around the rim of the door, causing the others to retract, unlocking the door which slowly swung open, the bass noise was revealed to be heavy beats for a party, with flashing lights, a disco ball, a DJ, and a giant serpent doing the "worm" in the middle of of the chamber while a bunch of cockatrices where cheering.

"What the bloody hell is this? The Chamber of Disco?"

There was the sound of a record scratching as everyone stopped partying and turned to Harry.

"Oh ssshit, I wasssn't expecting you for another two chaptersss..."

"Uh, no! Daemon decided I'd be here before Valentines, not after!"

" _Crap_."

* * *

The next month was interesting for Harry. He was having to juggle schoolwork, his odd inter-house friendships, earning and learning magic from the Basilisk (slow going at the moment) and figuring out how to stay up to date with school gossip and rumors so he could talk about it to Myrtle. It wasn't long before a holiday started to sneak up, almost surprising Harry one morning.

"Valentine's is in two days!?" Harry hissed as he overheard a couple older students talking about their plans for that Friday, apparently planning to share a love potion together in some unused classroom. "How did I forget?" He groaned, looking glumly at his cereal.

"Oh my goodness, are you worried you're not going to get anything? Harry that's adorable, but remember, you're a celebrity, you're probably going to get a lot of Valentines!" Gemma laughed from next to him, giving his shoulder a comforting squeeze.

"That's part of the problem. I've never gotten a Valentines before, and I just know I'm going to get stuff because of this 'Boy-Who-Lived' crap, and I'd rather..." Harry faltered for a brief moment, his mind thinking of how he'd prefer to get something from Hermione, but not wanting to admit that out loud, "I'd rather not."

Gemma watched Harry closely, if discreetly. She was actually quite a clever girl(she was a prefect after all), and had taken a shine to young Harry, in a big sister kind of way. She could pretty well figure out what Harry was thinking and understood his dislike of the whole fame thing. And she figured she knew who he'd really want something from. _I wonder how I can help him..._ She thought to herself as she watched the boy sneak glances across the Great Hall at Hermione.

* * *

Just after breakfast, Harry was in Herbology and working alongside Neville on the current project, which was learning about various plants used in potion ingredients.

"Thanks again Harry, I love my new wand!" Neville said cheerfully, using his new cherry wand to use the Water Spraying Charm on some Aconite plants. Between the two, Neville had been much more grateful about the wand than Ron had, but both were using their new wands to good effect, both having a lot better luck making spells work.

"No problem Nev, I didn't think it was fair for your grades to suffer."

"Yeah, but my Gran wanted me to use my dad's wand to honor him..." Neville briefly went glum, pulling out said wand from a pocket and looking at it for a moment.

"I think you'll honor your dad better by getting good grades."

Neville chuckled and shook his head. "I think you should've been in Hufflepuff, mate."

Harry shrugged at that, "I've thought about that some times. But, despite a bumpy start, I'm getting along well enough."

"Very well from some of the things I've heard. If half of what I've heard from my housemates is true, do you realize how much chocolate you're getting from Hufflepuff alone?"

Harry growled, trying to be menacing to make Neville drop the subject, but he just laughed. "I hope you're not the type to eat it all because you feel obligated."

Harry seemed to look sick for a moment as he thought about it, even if wizards seemed resistant to certain ailments that muggles struggled with, Harry felt that even he would get diabetes from that much chocolate. "I don't supposed you'd be willing to help me out with that, would you?"

"Well, actually..." Neville chuckled, looking a little embarrassed, "I think I might get some chocolate myself."

Harry's eyes widened in surprise as Neville blushed. "Who?!"

"Not tellin'."

"Not fair!"

"Totally fair, you're probably getting a mountain of it!"

"Come on Nev, who's the lucky lady?"

"I'd hardly call her lucky if she wants me." Neville joked, trying to brush him off.

Harry frowned at that, trying to think of something to say that wouldn't make both him and Neville uncomfortable but failing. Instead he backtracked his thoughts to this mystery girl and tried to sort through potential ladies. Starting with the first year Hufflepuff girls he counted them off and tried to think of which one might be interested. _Hannah... Megan...Sally...Sus-_ "Susan Bones!" Harry guessed out loud, remembering the lesson about wands a while back and some of the looks she'd been sneaking at Neville when he wasn't looking. Much to Harry's satisfaction, Neville instantly blushed and started blubbering.

"Wha? How did yo- I mean, uh..."

"Harry?" Susan called over at Harry from where she was working with Sally-Anne, having apparently heard her name.

Harry looked between her and Neville, drawing her eyes to the blushing boy and then giving her a knowing grin and a wink, causing the girl to blush deeply herself at Harry having found out. Sally-Anne started giggling as Susan tried to fight her blush and get back to work, while Harry chuckled at Neville.

* * *

Later in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Quirrell was hosting a practical session, students paired up and worked their way through all the jinxes, hexes, and curses they knew of and cast them at targets. Being first years, most people could at best cast jinxes, though a few could cast full hexes. Harry managed to get paired up with Hermione, having wanted to talk with her about Valentine's day, but class was half over now and he still couldn't bring up the subject.

" _Flipendo!_ " Harry cast the final jinx that he knew of after running through a good couple dozen with Hermione. The bright blue orb zipped faster than most other people's knockback jinxes, hitting the target with a clear ringing, causing Harry to smirk. "I think that's all the jinxes I got. You got any more Hermione?"

Hermione shook her head, "I think we should move onto Hexes," She grinned at Harry, "Can you cast any yet?"

Harry smirked back at her, knowing that because she was almost a whole year older, she did have a bit more magical energy than Harry. "Actually, I think I can, here. Watch. _Stupefy!_ " Harry strained to put his magic into the spell, and the jet of crimson energy burst out of his wand to hit the target. Everyone in the class had stopped and watched him cast it and there was a moment of hushed awe. The classic stunner was pretty much the benchmark of basic dueling, and being able to cast it marked Harry as a potential fighter, his heavy breathing notwithstanding. "Wow, that's really draining." He muttered, feeling his magic complain at the strain.

Hermione managed to keep herself from gaping, not wanting to look weak in front of Harry. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she said, "My turn." Then stepping up and stabbing her wand at the target. " _Stupefy!_ " She practically shrieked the spell as she called on her magic to cast it, the scarlet spell shooting out and hitting the target too. Her legs nearly buckled from the strain but she kept on her feet, now also panting. There was scattered applause around the class at their success, causing Harry to chuckle bashfully while Hermione blushed.

"W-w-well d-d-done y-you two. F-five p-p-points to R-ravenclaw a-and Sslytherin." Quirrell called out from the front of the class, giving them both a nervous smile.

Almost immediately after Quirrell's words, a chorus of _stupefy_ cried out as Draco, Vincent, and Gregory all cast their own stunning hexes. Draco clearly did not wished to be shown up by a Muggleborn. Quirrell was quick to award them points as well, at least, as quick as his stutter allowed.

With that out of the way, and giving himself a moment to recover his strength before casting any more hexes, Harry turned back to Hermione. The rush of the successful spell, the applause, and the house points, had given him a bit of momentary courage, so Harry said, "Hermione, um, you know how Friday is...um...Valentine's day and I was-"

"Harry." Hermione's voice was quiet, she was clearly struggling to keep her voice calm. "Can we not talk about that now?"

Crushed, and embarrassed, Harry turned away, not seeing the blush on Hermione's cheeks. He didn't see the people who were pretending to not be eavesdropping that were making Hermione embarrassed. "O-okay." He muttered, focusing his eyes on the target. Putting his frustration into his magic, he brought his wand up for another hex, casting the Stinging Hex. To his side, Hermione realized that Harry was misunderstanding, but she didn't know what to say, so she just continued with class, in a more subdued fashion. After class Hermione tried to get Harry's attention, to pull him somewhere private to talk, but he left before she could.

* * *

Thursday night after his "lessons" with the Basilisk(which mostly focused on getting his Occlumency down) Harry flew back into the bathroom, landing with a weary sigh.

"Have fun with the snake Harry?" Myrtle giggled.

"Oh yeah, having an inhuman monster invade my mind over and over again is loads of fun." Harry snarked a bit, hissing over his shoulder to close the entrance and then leaning against the sink.

"Is, everything alright?" Myrtle floated over, concern visible on her face. Harry was often tired after visiting the snake, but he was almost unfailingly polite to Myrtle nonetheless.

"I...Sorry Myrtle." Harry sighed again. "It's just, tomorrow is Valentines..."

Myrtle blinked in surprise, crossing her arms and looking at Harry suspiciously, "What? Do you think you won't get anything? Cuz that's silly."

"Uh, no, that's not exactly it. Um, you remember Hermione?"

"Yes." Myrtle grumbled. "What's wrong?"

"Um, I think she might be mad at me. I was kind of wanting to see if she wanted to do something tomorrow..." Harry was blushing as she admitted this.

Myrtle frowned, wanting to maybe throw a monkey wrench between Harry and Hermione, but having difficulty. Harry was putting a lot of trust in Myrtle, trusting her to keep the Chamber a secret, bringing her all the gossip that he could find, and now he was pouring his heart out to her. There was a brief moment of internal strife about but but eventually Myrtle sighed, moving to sit on the sink next to Harry. "Tell me what happened." She said simply.

A few minutes later, Harry finished telling about what happened, and Myrtle groaned. "You wanted to ask her about _Valentine's_ stuff in the middle of class?!"

"Um, yes? That was stupid, wasn't it?"

"Very stupid, yes. You should know by now how gossip and rumors work, there's no way people weren't going to try and listen in!"

"Oh."

"I'm pretty sure Hermione's going to get you something tomorrow. Better question, do you have something for her?"

"Yeah, I ordered a box of muggle chocolate, it arrived just after classes finished today."

"Muggle chocolates? Why that?"

Harry shrugged, "She's a Muggleborn, I thought she might like a taste from home. Also, I think chocolate frogs squick her out."

Myrtle chuckled at that. "Okay, that sounds fine."

Harry smiled as he stood up, "Thanks for talking with me Myrtle, it really helped."

"No problem Harry." She said with a smile. "You should probably get on to bed, talk to you tomorrow."

"Yeah, I'll tell you how it went. Good night." Harry left the bathroom feeling much better, while Myrtle grumbled about being too nice for her own good.

* * *

The next morning, Harry called in a favor with Draco, getting him and his minions to help him claim one of the Slytherin table's ends. They all quickly ate their breakfast, so that they could clear their area before mail call. Soon enough the first owl hootings came from above. Harry and Malfoy's gang quickly cleared their plates away, and Harry looked up to see a fair number of owls headed his way.

"Here we go..." Harry muttered as he caught the first box and set it down. A few minutes later, all the packages and letters were piled up and the chaos was over. Looking around, Harry saw how people were whispering and gossiping about the scene. Harry ignored them however, scanning the Ravenclaw table for Hermione, but not seeing her. _Coulda sworn she was here earlier._

"I think that's it Potter." Draco said, shaking his head at the pile. It was fairly impressive, and somewhat annoying because half the packages were labeled anonymously. _Probably old ladies embarrassed to be sending Valentines to an 11 year old._

"Right, let's get these back to my room, I'll sort them out later, thanks guys."

Harry and Co. collected the packages and made their way back to the dungeon, dropping all the stuff off on Harry's bed. Draco and Minions left then, going ahead and making their way to first class while Harry sorted through it all. After a quick moment of sorting, Harry frowned. "Nothing from Hermione..." He briefly touched the box in his robe's pocket, with the Chocolates he was planning to directly give to her. Was she going to give Harry something personally too? Harry looked at the packages with names on them and recognized a lot of fellow students names. So some people chose to send them by owl. Harry looked through the letters and cards then, trying to sort out which of his fellow students sent him friendly Valentines and who sent him more serious ones.

Glancing at some of the letters caused Harry's eyes to bulge and his face to flush red at the contents. Apparently some of the older students were offering to "teach" him things he had no business reading about. "Doesn't Dumbledore filter my mail? How'd I even get these?" _A question for later._

* * *

Later during Defense, Harry had trouble focusing on class because when he'd tried to talk to Hermione, she brushed him off, apparently upset about something. He could barely hear Quirrell trying to tell them about anti-jinxes and counter-jinxes. Part of his mind was annoyed that he couldn't focus, since Quirrell was barely stuttering today. _Is she upset because I got all those Valentines? But, she knew that was going to happen, right?_ It was frustrating. And it was more of the same during the next class, History of Magic. Hermione took a seat far away from Harry's normal spot and studiously ignored him. _What the heck?_ With an annoyed sigh as class started, Harry looked around and spotted Padma nearby. Getting ready to settle in for a nap, Harry tapped her to get her attention.

"Harry?"

"Hey, uh, thanks for the card." Padma had given Harry a store bought "friend Valentine" card, "But uh, do you know what's up with Hermione? I...I know it might have been bad of me to expect anything, but do you know why she's upset?"

Padma hesitated a bit before whispering back, "I'm not entirely sure, this morning when I asked her if she was getting you something, she blushed and avoided the question, which I thought meant she definitely got you something, but, after this morning she got upset."

"But why? Almost everyone in this freaking castle has been gossiping about what I was gonna get, wasn't there a betting pool among the fifth years? She...she knew this was coming right? She knew I _didn't_ want this right?"

"I'm sorry Harry, I don't know...I don't think she really believed you were gonna get that mountain of stuff."

Harry sighed, why did Hermione have to be so complicated.

"Um, Harry?"

"Hm?"

"Why do you care so much?"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I mean, I understand that Hermione is your friend, so you don't want her mad at you, but, there's a lot of girls in this school who are, um, interested in you..." Padma blushed a bit as she spoke, making a part of Harry's mind note that maybe her Valentine's might not have been simply 'as a friend'. "If you just want a girlfriend, I'm sure there are others that would be happy to be with you."

Harry's face blanched at the word 'girlfriend, which Padma seemed to notice. "I don't want a girlfriend. At least, not yet. But Hermione...she was one of the first friends I've ever had. And, I can't stand her being upset with me."

Padma was quiet for a second, before letting out a sigh. "Alright, look, after class, and before you head to lunch, stop in the library, I'll try to get Hermione there so you two can talk, but no promises."

Harry brightened up at Padma's offer to help. "Thanks Padma!"

"You're welcome Harry."

* * *

After class, Harry quickly left to head for the library, getting there just a couple minutes later. Madam Pince glared at the intruding student for a moment before softening her expression when realizing it was Harry. Harry was one of the few students Pince wasn't actively hostile at, as he was always careful to follow all the rules regarding the library and its books.

"Spending lunch in here Mr. Potter?"

"Just a bit Madam Pince, I needed to check on something." Harry said respectfully, before making his way over to the "Charms" section of bookshelves, largely because it let him keep an eye on the library entrance. Soon enough Hermione and Padma came in, and when she spotted him, Hermione tried to turn around and leave, but Padma whispered something sharply at her and pushed her forward towards Harry. Behind them Pince was giving them a suspicious glare from her desk, just waiting for them to do something against the rules. After a moment Hermione finally came over, looking reluctant. When she came over, Harry handed her the charms book he'd been 'looking' at, to make it look to Pince like they were here because of some project or other.

Hermione quietly took the book and opened it, putting her back to Pince as she pretended to read it. Harry stood there for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. Finally, he said, "I'm sorry I got so many Valentine's things, but you know I didn't want it, right?"

Hermione sighed, "It wasn't the amount of stuff you got that upset me Harry, it was the quality."

"Um, pardon?"

"I could see some of the things you got, the ones that weren't in wrapped packages anyway. I saw that Golden Egg, and that box marked with 'Wonderful Wizard's Wear' and if people bought you those things and left them unwrapped I can only imagine what some of the wrapped packages might have had."

Harry vaguely remembered from his gift sorting that some of the stuff had looked expensive, but since he had been more interested in seeing if anything came from Hermione, he hadn't looked too closely. "Um, okay, but, why does that matter?"

Hermione briefly gave Harry a sharp glare, which caused him to flinch. He tried to remind himself that, for whatever reason, boys and girls sometimes think differently about things. After a moment Hermione's face softened as she pulled an pink envelope out of her robes. "All I got you...all I could afford to get you, was this stupid card. How can I give this to you after you've gotten all that amazing stuff?"

Harry stared at the envelope for a moment, knowing that he wanted it very badly for some reason, and tried to figure out how to put it into words so that Hermione would feel better. After a moment he tried to do so. "Hermione...you're my friend. We survived a troll attack together. A card from you will mean more to me than some overly expensive robe from a brand I've never heard of, or a giant golden egg or whatever..." _Wait, was that egg actually made of gold or was it a chocolate egg thing? I didn't check._ Harry tried to brush the thought away to stay on track.

Slowly Hermione started to hand Harry the envelope, looking at him like she didn't really believe he would like it. Harry took it with a smile and opened it, finding a hand-made Valentine's card, in which Hermione thanked Harry for saving her from the troll, for being a good person, and apologizing for how she acted after he was sorted. By the time he was done reading it, he had a huge smile on his face. "Thanks Hermione, this is the best Valentine's I've ever gotten." Her looked at her and tried to convey his sincerity, which seemed to make her blush.

"Y-you're welcome Harry...so...did you get anything for me?"

"Oh, yeah, right, hold on, I got it right here." Harry pulled the heart shaped box of muggle chocolates out of his pouch, quickly handing it to Hermione, who looked confused for a moment. "Um, I thought you might want something from back home, especially since I heard you didn't like Chocolate Frogs because they jumped...was I wrong?"

A small smile slowly spread across Hermione's face. At first it had seemed that Harry had just given her a generic gift, but she realized that Harry had put thought into it, since getting Muggle chocolates into Hogwarts must have taken some effort, more than it would have compared to just asking one of the third years to pick something up in Honeydukes during a Hogsmeade trip. "No, it's perfect. Thank you Harry." She smiled warmly at him as she put the charms book back on the shelf. "Let's get down to lunch, I'm suddenly very hungry."

"Okay!" Harry said happily as they turned to leave. Spotting Padma, Harry remembered that she'd been there and flinched when he saw her expression of gushing over them. Apparently she very much approved. "Thanks for the help Padma."

"Anytime Harry!" She said cheerfully as the three of them left the library. Padma went on ahead, letting Harry and Hermione walk to the Great Hall together. They didn't say much as they walked, but they both smiled the whole time.

* * *

Author's Commentary

 **Fast Frank** : Hogwarts Canonically was founded in 993 a.d. Merlin is also Canonically a Slytherin. How exactly this is supposed to historically jive is J.K. Rowling's business(she made the Potterverse). Whether the events of the Arthurian Legend are supposed to have happened after Hogwarts was founded or whatever might simply be how the Potterverse works.

Thank you everyone for the positive reviews, keep them coming! I'm actually able to write a lot lately so keep me motivated!


	11. Chapter 11: Of Dragons and Dreams

Side Story 5

After watching the spectacle that was Harry Potter's Valentine's day gifts, Neville shook his head before turning to the girl next to him. "I still think yours is better."

Susan blushed prettily, appreciating his words but shook her head. "I think I saw a German Golden Egg is his pile."

"Wait, really? Sure it wasn't a Belgium Golden Egg?"

"It didn't look like foil, it looked pretty solid to me."

"Yeesh, I wonder who sent him that."

"Probably some old witch with too much money and no shame."

"Probably." Neville nodded as he opened his box of chocolates and popped one in his mouth. "Mmm!" He moaned slightly in delight, "Did you make these yourself?!"

Susan smiled, but shook her head. "No, I had my Aunt make them for me, since I'm not allowed to use the kitchen here. But it's my mum's recipe, and I can make it too."

"Oh god this is heaven!" Neville said, popping another one into his mouth.

"Jeez, slow down Nev." Susan laughed.

* * *

Time would feel as if it was flying, especially as it grew closer to time for the exams. And Harry's full workload was stressing him out. In addition to the massive piles of homework all the teachers were throwing at the students, Harry was now learning memory charms from the Basilisk, having achieved a basic level of competency in Occlumency. Amusingly, though she was acting more stressed than anyone else about upcoming exams, Harry had a feeling Hermione was having fun with how she was preparing for it. It was now April, and another thing had popped up to stress Harry out.

"A...dragon egg?" Harry muttered, looking at the dark red egg sitting in the pot over Hagrid's fire. "Where did you even get it!?"

"Won it from a chap down at the pub a couple weeks ago. Seemed quite glad ter be rid of it, ter be honest."

"Well I'm not surprised, do you realize how illegal this is?!" Hermione practically screeched at Hagrid, causing him and Harry to both flinch.

"She's right Hagrid, you can't keep it." Harry felt bad to be doing this, he remembered back when he first met Hagrid, how he'd said he'd always wanted a dragon, and here he was, living his dream. But Harry had to shut it down before Hagrid got in trouble again.

"But he's about ter hatch!" Hagrid said, pointing at the egg, which twitched.

Despite himself, Harry looked at the egg with interest. It wasn't everyday you got to see a dragon hatch. Even Hermione quieted down and started watching with interest as Hagrid put on some oven gloves and pulled the hot egg out, putting it on his table. Hagrid's beetle black eyes twinkled with excitement as he waited for the egg to hatch while Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance. _All I wanted to do was ask him about how unsafe it was for Fluffy to sit in that room, and here we are dealing with something even more dangerous._ Harry mentally groaned. Were all magic schools this exciting?

A few minutes later, the dragon, quickly named Norbert, was born and Hagrid was fawning over him like he was a cute kitten or something and not a wild, fire breathing monster. And Hagrid was so happy that there was no talking to him for the moment, so Harry and Hermione made their way back to the school.

"So, do you think this is suspicious too, or is it just me?"

Hermione nodded her head at Harry's question. "Whoever gave him the egg was probably trying to figure out how to get past Fluffy."

Harry chuckled at that, "I figured that out just thinking about it."

"Oh?" Hermione looked surprised.

"C'mon Hermione, you probably know more Greek myths than I do."

"Hm...Orpheus?"

"Yep." Harry smiled, pulling out his flute, "Hagrid gave me this as a Christmas present, and I visited Fluffy the other night to see if it would work, put him right to sleep."

"That was very dangerous Harry." Hermione admonished her friend, though she couldn't keep herself from smiling. "But very clever."

"Just a bit." Harry demurred as they reached the castle. "Well, I have a study session with Draco's group, catch you later?"

"Yeah, see you Harry!" Hermione waved as she went off to her own study session.

* * *

A little while later Harry was trying to put Norbert out of his mind as he went over Transfiguration notes with Draco's gang. In particular, Harry was trying to help Goyle memorize a transfiguration equation. It was not going well.

"Hey Harry, why do you understand this stuff so much better than me?" Gregory asked, scratching his head as his eyes went crossed looking at the notes.

"It's because he's smarter than you, not that that's hard." Draco snarked from where he was helping Vincent.

"Actually, that's something I've been thinking about." Harry said, shaking his head at Draco. "I've noticed that though Wizarding families already know and understand certain things before coming to Hogwarts, Muggleborns, or Muggle-raised like myself, don't have much trouble catching up, and I think it's because we had primary education before coming here."

"Education?" Draco scoffed at that, "You mean muggle education, what use is that garbage here?"

"Well, I may not have learned knowledge that I use here, but at least I'm already used to the idea of school stuff. I've already spent several years taking notes, doing homework, preparing for tests, that kind of stuff. From what I've seen, most wizarding families only give their kids a basic understanding of reading, writing, and math. Have any of you ever had to do homework before? Make sure you set aside enough time to get it done, know how to search through your textbooks for answers, know how to take notes and whatnot before you came to Hogwarts?"

Slowly, Crabbe and Goyle shook their heads, but Draco hesitated, admitting, "I had personal tutors."

"Because you come from a family that demands excellence. And have the money to afford it. Most Wizarding families, either can't afford it, or have other priorities than to make sure their kids have tutors, regardless of how pure their blood is."

"So that's how those mud-Muggleborns do it, they have a head start!" Draco declared, avoiding Harry's glare at his verbal fumble. "If all wizarding families did the same, our stronger blood would more obviously show itself!"

"Um." _That's not what I was getting at..._ Harry thought to himself for a moment before getting an idea. "Hey, your dad's on the board of school governors, right?"

"He's the chairman." Draco said proudly.

"Maybe you could tell him about this, see if it's possible to reform Magical Britain to have a primary school too, so that wizarding families aren't at a disadvantage."

Draco visibly deflates at that, and Harry notices that Crabbe and Goyle share a look.

"I'm...not sure how willing my father will be to do something like that...so no promises, okay?"

"Er, yeah, no problem. I mean, it's just an idea, and it doesn't hurt to ask, does it?"

* * *

A week later Harry was hurrying through the castle, on his way to Hagrid's, having meant to be there an hour ago but got held up by a Peeves encounter. Now using several shortcuts, Harry skid out from under a tapestry door and rounded a corner at full speed when he ran face first into two large marshmallows and was knocked on his ass while the marshmallows let out a loud, "OOF!"

"What the heck?" Harry muttered as he quickly tried to stand up and looked at the girl he just ran into, who was now rubbing her chest with a frown.

"That might leave a bruise." She said before taking in the boy. "Oh, Potter?" Suddenly a mischievous grin crossed her face. "If you wanted a squeeze all ya had to do was ask, I wouldn't refuse The-Boy-Who-Lived you know."

Harry frowned rather than get flustered. He'd had a couple older women tease him like that, especially since Valentine's so he managed to only blush a little bit. He looked over the girl in front of him and noted she was an older Hufflepuff girl, probably a sixth or seventh year, and she had a shock of bubblegum pink hair and purple eyes that sparkled and a slight point to her ears, and two giant pillows on her chest that he knew from the impact a moment ago weren't just stuffing in her bra. _I shudder to think of the back pain that will give her._

But after a moment, his knowledge of the rumor mill clicked into place and he snapped his fingers, "Nymphadora Tonks! You're a Metamorphmagi!"

The surprise on her face was only temporary as she quickly shifted to annoyed, "Don't call me Nymphadora, I'm Tonks!"

"Er, okay? Those aren't your real, uh, you know?"

Tonks was now giving Harry a look that he mentally labelled the, "I'm not what you thought I was" look that he saw on a lot of people. He had to resist the urge to chuckle.

"I'm surprised you've heard about me, but no, these aren't mine." She smiled as she made her chest rapidly shrink and grow, a sight that made Harry burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of it. "I normally keep to a normal size but I was dared to spend the day like this. Thankfully it's Saturday so I'm trying to stick to the less used parts of the Castle."

"Oh." Harry nodded, that made sense. Someone with a chest like that would definitely get more talked about in the rumor mill. Suddenly a thought occurs to him. "Hey, people say that you always have pink hair and altered looks and stuff, but what do you actually look like? Without the metamorph stuff."

That question gave Tonks pause for a moment, long enough that Harry worried he might have said something wrong again, but slowly Tonk's features started shifting. She shrunk by about two inches, he hair turned light brown and became shoulder length, her eyes became brown, her chest shrank to a much more reasonable size, and certain features on her face shifted till she looked a bit younger and cuter. "Well, not much to look at, huh?"

Harry looked her over for a second, before saying in that innocently honest way that only a child could, "I like it!"

Now it was Tonks' turn to blush at the honest compliment. She quickly shifted back into her previous look, pleased with the somewhat disappointed look on Harry's face. "So what were you running around in such a hurry for, anyway?"

"Running? Oh! Hagrid!" Harry darted off around Tonks the moment his mind remembered what he had been doing, leaving a confused Tonks behind.

After a moment she chuckled to herself. "Kind of wish he was older now." She muttered before continuing with her day.

* * *

A short while later, Harry got to Hagrid's hut and knocked on the door. Once inside, Harry saw that Norbert was now about as big as Fang, and was not anything like an obedient pet. Hagrid was cooing at it as he tried to get him to calm down but Harry was terrified that any minute now Norbert was going to burn the whole house down. Harry spent the rest of the afternoon arguing with Hagrid to finally convince him to get rid of Norbert, which Hagrid only agreed to on the condition that Norbert would be safe and happy wherever he went. Which was when Harry got an idea and a plan started to form.

Later at dinner, Harry pulled Ron aside and put up a muffliato to talk to him.

"What do you want Harry?" Ron asked neutrally, his arms crossed.

"Back on the train you told me about your brothers, didn't you say one of them worked with dragons?"

Ron blinked, seeming to be surprised Harry remembered something from that long ago. "Yeah, that's Charlie. He works in Romania."

"Well, do you think he'd be willing to come and take a stray dragon back to Romania?"

At this point Ron was gaping at Harry for a moment, the gears in his head turning until finally he pinched the bridge of his nose, groaning. "Hagrid?"

"Hagrid." Harry confirmed. "So, think you can help?"

Ron hesitated for a moment before finally nodding. "Yeah, I'll send Charlie an owl and see if he'll help, but you'll owe me for this Harry."

"Me and Hagrid both." Harry agreed.

A couple days later in class, Ron passed Harry a note that simply said, 'Charlie said yes. Astronomy Tower, midnight, Saturday'.

Harry grinned when he saw it, and went about the next part of his plan. Carrying Norbert would be tricky, so they would need help.

"You'll owe me for this Potter." Draco agreed easily, a devilish smirk crossing his face.

Harry nodded. Ron had little desire to have anything to do with the dragon, since if he got caught his mum would very likely skin him alive, or so he said. So Harry, Draco, Gregory, and Vincent would use Harry's Invisibility cloak to move the dragon up to the tower. With all the pieces in place, Harry went to bed on Friday feeling confident in his plot, but would awaken the next morning shaken by his dream.

* * *

Harry strides forth confidently, the black smoke parting around him as if his presence alone banished the darkness. The arena of brimstone slowly revealed itself, and Harry's eyes fell upon the gigantic dragon facing him, bearing a majestic crown of horns and a deadly spiked tail that thumped against the ground, sending a spiderweb of cracks out. Its huge wings unfurled and spread, and it roared so loud reality itself seemed to shake in fright, but Harry felt a laugh bubbling out of him. His wand felt like an ancient sword of glory in his hand and his magic felt like it wanted to burst forth in challenge. As the dragon prepared to spit fire at Harry, he brandished his wand and spoke ancient words and powerful light sprung forth.

And that was when Harry woke up, stunned by his dream, wondering what it could possibly mean...

* * *

Saturday, after dinner, Hermione stopped Harry briefly to wish him luck on his mission, asking him to be careful not to get caught. Harry confidence(since he had an invisibility cloak) did not seem to comfort her. The look of relief on her face the next day was impressive. Harry's plan had gone off without a hitch. Norbert had been retrieved and brought up to the tower easily enough, and handed off to Charlie's friends. Draco had reminded Harry to grab his cloak again after he almost forgot it when they were about to head back, which was good because they had almost run into Flich on the way back to the dungeon.

At the end of April, Ron got a letter from his brother to be read with Hagrid and Harry, which Charlie gave an update about how well Norbert, or Norberta, was doing. Turns out she was a girl dragon, and was doing great. Hagrid was crying happy tears to hear that, especially when Charlie's letter said that Norberta was very healthy, Hagrid had apparently done well with her diet.

* * *

"And that's about all I can think of that's happened lately." Harry finished, smiling at the look of awe on Myrtle's face.

"You snuck a dragon out of the school?! That's amazing Harry!" She squealed with delight. "Oh, how are your lessons with the snake coming?"

"Pretty good, I think I've got the basics of memory charms down. Enough that I can safely charm and uncharm myself, anyway."

"Yourself? Why would you want to memory charm yourself?"

"Well, I know a lot of secrets don't I? It's apparently common practice for Heirs to learn how to temporarily suppress their own memories of the Chamber in case they might run into veritaserum or a good Legilimens."

"But wouldn't you then not know about that stuff?"

"Well, the particular type of memory charm the snake's teaching me is a reversible one. It's more like locking a memory than erasing it, and I just have to use a counter-charm to unlock it. So if I know I might be caught about something, I can lock away the memory and leave a note for myself to find later to unlock it."

"Ooh, that's very clever. I wonder if that jerk that killed me did the same thing."

Harry shrugged. "Maybe, technically if I get good enough with Occlumency, I shouldn't need it, but it's better to know it and not need it, right?"

"Mmhmm." Myrtle agreed. "So, feeling confident about the exams? You've had a lot on your plate."

Harry shrugged again, but with much less bravado. "I guess. On the quizzes and homework I seem to be doing well enough. I figure I'm going to pass all the exams, but I'm not expecting many O's or E's."

"I think you'll do better than you think Harry. You're a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for."

"Well, yeah but I'm trying to be humble here." Harry joked, getting a good laugh out of Myrtle.

* * *

Author's Commentary: Yeah...sorry about the delay. I've tried several times to finish this chapter, but I really burned myself out when I made those three back to back chapters. I guess I should pace myself better but I really felt the muse for a while there. I'm going to try to be better, I want to finish at least the first year really soon, I have so many ideas for the coming years of Harry's life. Also, Merry Xmas! I hope you all have a good holiday and enjoy this present!


	12. Chapter 12: Through the Trapdoor

Omake 6

While Harry was busy trying to deal with Hagrid's dragon, a new Hufflepuff girl seemed to appear out of nowhere one day and started flirting with Harry almost constantly. She'd appear out of nowhere while Harry was walking through the hallways and glomp onto his arm, pressing her chest into his arm, inevitably making him blush. No one seemed to know who she was and she always disappeared without a trace.

But of course no one could figure out who Nymphadora Tonks was when she didn't want them to. She was such a playful thing. Lucky for Harry she was only in Hogwarts for one more year.

* * *

The month of May came and went. Unicorns started showing up dead in the Forbidden Forest, which Hagrid tried to sort out, but he couldn't find the cause. But in positive news, Hermione had found out that Nicolas Flamel was a big figure in the wizarding world, if not one normally talked about. While doing History of Magic studying(going far beyond the first year required reading) Hermione had found about Flamel and his Philosopher's Stone, which was one of the last puzzle pieces Harry needed.

"On my birthday Hagrid took me to Gringotts to get my money, but we made a pit-stop at vault 713 and picked up a very tiny package." Harry showed Hermione, holding his fingers about a walnut-size apart. They were sitting under the shade of a tree by the lake, ostensibly studying together. "That same day, someone tried to rob that vault."

"Professor Dumbledore must have seer-like prescience to have that arranged so timely."

"No joke." Harry chuckled. "So, as I've figured it so far," Harry pulled out the Dumbledore chocolate frog card. "Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel are good buddies, for some reason, Flamel has reason to think someone wants to steal it, either for greed or for the life restoring properties. He has Dumbledore retrieve it from Gringotts. Dumbledore decides to use Hagrid taking me there as cover for its retrieval. Anyone looking would probably be paying more attention to me."

"Very clever." Hermione grinned as she took the card and glanced at it.

"Yep. Hagrid said that no place was safer than Gringotts 'except Hogwarts'. Way I see it, Fluffy on the third floor is protecting it."

"But, that can't be right, Fluffy is honestly easy to get past."

"But he's not the only thing there I'm betting. Remember the Mirror? I'm betting Dumbledore's using that too. There's probably tons of traps and stuff under that trapdoor. And the Troll incident? That was probably a distraction to try and get to it."

"You're right! I could have died because of that!" Hermione was still very upset about her near death experience.

"Yeah...I'm...I'm glad that didn't happen." Harry still had nightmares every now and then about what had happened to the troll, but at some point Harry had decided that it was worth it to protect her. "But yeah, uh, I did some research on Unicorns and learned that drinking Unicorn blood can extend a dying person's life, but they get cursed somehow if they do it. So, whoever's been attacking the Unicorns is probably after the Stone for the Elixir of Life power."

"But weren't the Unicorns being eaten?"

"Best way to cover up the blood drinking would be to make it look like you're eating it. Might throw off the trail and make us think its a Dark creature of some kind."

"Good point."

"But I don't think we need to worry too much as long as Dumbledore's around."

"Yeah, so, feeling good about Exams tomorrow?"

"Yep. I probably won't do as good as you, but I should pull through fine."

* * *

Harry had never been bad at academics, but with Dudley's presence always threatening him if he ever tried to overachieve, he had always held back. But at Hogwarts, he had every reason to push himself to succeed, and had found some of his "friends" relying on him to help them study. Hermione was a great help for understanding certain things, but she wasn't a constantly available resource, forcing a lot of independent study.

Over the previous month, Harry had on very rare occaisions felt a tiny prick of pain from his scar, usually during the nights that a Unicorn died. The Basilisk had guessed that the curse mark was connected to the one who gave it to him, and that whenever that person was feeling extreme emotions, it was hurting him. Occlumency, which Harry was getting decent at, could reduce the pain, this explained why the pain was light as it was, his passive defenses were pretty much always up. Because of this Harry generally figured that Voldemort was the one trying to get to the stone. Dumbledore had said that he was severely reduced, but Harry guessed the Philosopher's Stone would likely help him get his body back. The Unicorns must be one of the ways he was sustaining himself.

Harry didn't yet share his Voldemort theory with any of his friends yet, worried about how they would respond. Besides, they all had Exams to worry about.

The morning of June 4th was dedicated to the written exams. The classrooms they took the tests in were uncomfortably hot for some reason, but Harry managed to focus well enough on getting through them. The afternoon practicals were more fun. Harry made his mouse turn into a very pretty snuffbox for transfiguration, and had no problem making a pineapple(for some odd reason) tapdance across Professor Flitwick's desk. Harry was certain his best test though was in Quirrell's test, which was simply to hit as many moving targets as accurately as possible with the knockback jinx. Harry had almost been on full auto with his spells, and didn't miss a single target.

"Do alright on the transfiguration test Vincent?"

"My snuffbox still had whiskers, but I think I passed. Thanks Harry."

Harry grinned as he and Draco's crew chatted about the exams afterwords. They were coincidentally sitting under the same tree Harry and Hermione did before the exams, watching others come and go and enjoy the post exams freedom. The Weasley Twins and Lee Jordan were tickling the Giant Squid's tentacles for some reason as it basked in the warm shallows. By this point Draco's crew and Ron's crew also knew about the Philosophers Stone and the traps and Harry's suspicions about someone trying to steal it. Many ideas had been bandied about with Harry as the intermediary regarding who might be trying to steal it. Ron was swearing up and down that it was Snape, since to non-Slytherins he was generally considered evil. Draco had jokingly suggested Quirrell, since there was a running gag that "it was always the Defense Professor" that caused them to lose their job after a year. Quirrell had actually lasted until exams, longer than the average DADA professor, so most people were in one way or another waiting for the shoe to drop.

More serious considerations were various independent Dark Witches and Wizards, Like Dark Mab, Arsène Voleur, or Schinderhannes. Arsène is actually known to have made attempts to steal the Stone in the past. He was actually supposed to be in a French prison at the moment but it would not be the first time he'd gotten out and no one was aware of it, yet. Learning about these individuals made Harry wonder about his own beliefs regarding his scar and Voldemort. After all, Voldemort was hardly the only villain in the world.

At some point Gregory suggested they slip to the kitchens to get some drinks because of how hot it was, maybe get some food and come back to the lake to relax in comfort, which everyone was all for. As they entered the Entrance Hall, which was blessedly cool compared to outside, they chanced upon Professor McGonagall, who was carrying some books.

"Hey Professor, what's up with the books?" Harry waved at her as they approached. Draco and the others were less happy to see the Gryffindor Head of House, but they smiled politely nonetheless.

"Oh, just retrieving the loaner books for this year." She said, referring to books the school loaned to students that couldn't afford or "forgot" to buy them. "What are you four doing inside? It's a lovely day." She looked down at them with faux-suspicion, though the small smile showed she didn't expect any real mischief from them.

"Well, we were gonna see if we could get some drinks and snacks from the house-elves to be honest. Might have a picnic by the lake, you know?" Harry admitted the truth fairly easily. Despite other Slytherins distrust of her, to Harry she was a fairly reasonable person of authority.

"Harry, you know you're not supposed to bother the elves like that." She chided in a motherly manner.

"I know, but they're always so happy when we visit."

"Fine, just don't abuse their goodwill Harry. You all behave now."

"Want some help with that?"

"No thank you. I'm heading to the Headmaster's office anyway to take care of something while he's away."

Harry's smile faltered for a moment then.

"The Headmaster's away? Did something happen?"

"He got a letter from the Ministry this morning, he'll be back tomorrow. Happens all the time Harry. Have a nice day." With that, McGonagall went off up the stairs towards the Headmaster's office.

"Everything alright Harry?" Draco asked, noticing the pensive look on Harry.

"Um...I think that our mysterious stone hunter might be moving soon."

Draco's eyes widened for a moment, "Because Dumbledore's gone?"

"Yeah, me and Hermione think that once whoever it is has found out how to get past all the traps, the biggest obstacle would be him. Would any smart wizard try to make any kind of major move while Dumbledore was here?"

"No..." Draco agreed, crossing his arms and thinking hard about various plotting probabilities. Vincent and Gregory exchanged a look, they knew something big was happening, and their duty was to protect Draco. "But why now?"

"The Stone Hunter has probably finally figured out all the traps, and needs all the teachers relaxed and off guard, and Dumbledore gone. Today was probably the best day to pull it off."

"But won't Dumbledore just come back as soon as he knows whatever he was called for was fake?"

"It's probably not fake, at least, the Hunter probably staged some event that would legitimately get the Ministry to call for Dumbledore's help."

"Right, in that case, fake or not, the Hunter's going to have to act fast."

"Um, shouldn't we tell one of the teachers, like Professor Snape?" Vincent spoke up.

"We could, but I don't think any of them, even Snape would take us seriously. From what I've gleaned from Hagrid, the teachers basically think the Stone is untouchable."

"These are traps set up by some of the brightest witches and wizards of our country, including Dumbledore, who, might I remind you, is using one of the Artifacts of Atlantis. Do we honestly need to be worried?"

Draco made a damn good point. But Harry still felt like it was going to happen.

"When you told me about Arsène, you said that he'd managed to slip past Atlantis Artifacts before. And that Cherno guy, he's brute forced his way through Dark Tombs."

"Chernoknizhnik was his title, not his name." Draco rolled his eyes.

"Not the point, what I'm saying is...this guy has been planning to get the stone all year, and now he's making his move. We might be the only ones who can stop him, think of how many points for Slytherin we could get if we catch him!"

"Or how many we could lose if we get busted."

Harry and Draco stared at each other for a moment, almost in a silent battle of wills.

"I'm going. I'll be on the third floor in an hour if you wanna help."

"Why aren't you heading straight there?"

"I'm getting Ron and Hermione, I'm going to need help and I'm sure they'd be willing."

Draco frowned at that. "You realize that's going to make me less willing, right?"

"Yeah, but I think they're better than you think they are." Harry smirked, turning to head for where he last saw Hermione back outside. "Remember, one hour."

* * *

An hour later, Draco approached the third floor corridor stealthily, starting slightly when Harry, Ron, and Hermione revealed themselves from under his Invisibility Cloak. Ron and Draco glared at each other, but kept their peace, while Hermione and Harry shared a brief humorous look.

"Alright, everyone ready?" Harry asked, pulling out his flute to put Fluffy to sleep. Everyone nodded and followed as Harry lead the way. When he opened the door, he was surprised however to find that Fluffy was already asleep, and there was an enchanted harp to the side playing music. Everyone slowly made their way inside.

"The Thief is definitely on the move, anyone know how long the harp's going to last?" Harry asked.

Hermione went over to tap the harp with her wand, muttering a spell. "There's plenty of magic left in the harp, it'll go for a couple hours, at least until after dinner is over."

Harry nodded, satisfied. He put his flute back into his mokeskin pouch and motioned for Ron to help him move Fluffy's paw off of the trapdoor. A moment later, they popped it opened and looked down into the darkness below.

" _Lumos!_ " Harry's wand lit up, but its light couldn't reach the bottom. "Well, any ideas?"

Harry looked at each of his friends in turn. Hermione raised her hand, like she was in class, while Ron smirked knowingly, pulling out his wand, but Draco was quickest, flicking his wand and casting a Flare Charm, dropping a falling ball of light that went all the way down, revealing something dark and green very far down.

"It's a plant." Ron said dryly. "Might be a good cushion."

"That's a bit risky, isn't it?" Hermione asked, frowning. Draco himself didn't want to look cowardly, but didn't want to be the first to jump.

"Alright, let me think..." Harry said, but Ron was having none of that.

"Gryffindor's know no fear!" Ron cackled, hopping into the hole without hesitation, laughing the whole way down.

"Ron!" All the of the others called out, and then watched as Ron hit the plant below and quickly rolled off onto the stone walkway around it.

"It's all good guys!" His voice called out, sounding oddly merry.

"He's a lunatic..." Draco muttered, running a hand through his hair. "Didn't even use a feather fall spell."

"Do you know that spell?"

"I have a magic tool for it." Draco answered, pulling out a small feather from his pocket. "But I guess we don't need it."

Harry, then Draco, then Hermione all jumped down, landing on the oddly soft plant, and then stood up.

"That was incredibly reckless Ron, you could have been hurt!" Hermione tried to admonish Ron, but he laughed and pointed down.

"Watch your feet."

Harry looked down and yelped at the same time as Draco and Hermione, and quickly tried to get out, but strong, quick vines were quickly growing up their legs.

"It's Devil's Snare guys." Ron said, still smirking.

With that hint, all three of them quickly cast _incendio_ , lighting vines near them on fire and causing them to recoil and let go. They quickly got onto the stone with Ron, where Draco glared at Ron.

"You've been through here before!"

"Half of Gryffindor has, mate. My brothers were the first of course, couldn't resist a chance to break the rules, but when they came back and told us that the entire path here could be beat by first years, a lot of us took it as some kind of secret challenge. Funny thing though, throughout the year, the puzzles have changed. The Potion challenge near the end usually gives me the most trouble."

"But the Stone..." Harry muttered, wondering if he'd been wrong.

"The Thief is probably getting desperate. They're probably running out of time, one way or another, so they had to make their move today. After all, Dumbledore's trap is probably the mirror, the last, and hardest puzzle. And ultimately, it's probably the only one that matters."

"So we still need to do this. Even if the mirror is hard to figure out, we can't give the Thief free reign to figure it out."

Everyone nodded and followed Harry as he lead the way through the passageway into a large open room with flying things up above.

"Ah, the flying keys. Ever since the Prank War, it's usually been a maze of locked doors, have to use variations of the _alohomora_ to get through."

Harry laughed at the idea that he'd inspired a puzzle trap for protecting the stone. Ron went over the door on the other side and inspected the lock. "Looks like we need a key that's big, old, and silver. Harry, Draco, let's grab the brooms and snag it real quick."

Hermione huffed in indignation at being specifically excluded, but ultimately did not say anything on account of being terrified of flying. It was the one class that she had trouble with.

The boys made quick work of the challenge, landing soon after and using the key to get through. Draco grinned smugly, having been the one to snatch the key almost right out of Ron's hands.

"I had that..."

"Guess we know which of us is the better Seeker, eh?"

"Oh blow it out yer arse Malfoy. I'm more of a Keeper anyway."

The next room, much to their surprise, had a giant chess set. Everyone slowly turned to Ron.

"Yes, it's exactly what it looks like. But the pieces don't hurt people, if your piece gets taken, they usually just bop you on the head and tell you to leave. Unless you're on a knight's horse. It stabs the horse, which is bloody scary, but you'll be fine. Dean knocked himself out once though when he fell."

"Well, I'm pretty sure Ron's the best chess player here, so I guess this one's up to you."

"Alright mate, but this game plays at a high difficulty, I hardly ever win. The real trick is actually just to get ourselves to the other side. The white pieces won't let us just walk across, but if we get there legally, they have no issue with us just walking off and forfeiting. Which is harder when you have more people..."

After a moment of thinking, Ron had Draco and Harry take the rooks, and Hermione the queen, which she protested while blushing, until Ron pointed out he just needed them to be able to move straight forward quickly. Ron himself took a knight's spot. Over the next ten minutes, Ron skillfully navigated the board, leading them all across.

"That was amazing Ron!" Harry said, clapping him on the back.

"That one rook came way to close to me Weasley." Draco grumbled.

"You were fiiiiine." Ron gave him a sly grin. That had totally been on purpose.

In the next room, they found an unconscious troll with a large gruesome bump on its head. Harry and Hermione froze at the sight of it, remembering intensely the fear they had felt that day, while Draco turned to Ron and snarled, "I thought you said first years could get past this stuff, that's a troll!"

"Harry beat a troll."

"On accident! And he used a dangerous spell that killed it!" Draco tactfully lowered his voice for that last part, knowing Harry didn't like thinking about his first kill.

Ron sighed, scratching his head. "Yeah, well, the troll doesn't hurt students. Just throws us into the previous room if it catches us. Normally the trick here is to be fast or stealthy. Once you're through the door on the other side, you're good. Our thief though looks like he took a more...direct approach."

"I'll say." Draco shook his head at the sight. "Trolls can regenerate, do you realize how hard you'd have to hit it to make it stay out for any appreciable length of time?"

"Then let's not waste time..." Harry said, moving quickly to get past the troll's body, avoiding looking at it. The other three quickly followed, with Hermione giving it the widest berth.

The next room contained a number of different sized bottles and a piece of paper. Ron loudly swore at the sight, prompting everyone to look at him.

"I hate this blasted riddle!"

Turns out, there was a riddle you had to solve to know which bottle was which, and the riddle changed all the time with different bottles being different things on different days, so you couldn't just memorize the riddles' answers when you learned one. Ron pretty clearly indicated he wouldn't be much help, leaving the other three to look over the paper. At the sight of Draco and Harry going cross-eyed, Hermione sighed and took the paper to figure it out herself, which she quickly did, but there was one problem.

"This is the potion for heading forward, but there's barely enough in this tiny bottle for one sip!"

"The thief's obviously already been through, so it probably magically refills on its own." Harry guessed.

"Probably, but those kinds of spells take a bit to work. Probably fifteen minutes or so before it refills on its own." Draco said, but he pulled out his wand and smirked. "Luckily, I can do the refilling charm."

"Nice one Draco!" Harry said with a grin. Harry took the bottle and took the first sip, quickly handing it off to Hermione and heading through the flame. A feeling of ice flooded his body and the fire couldn't touch him, and Harry found himself in a room with one of the last people he'd expected to find here. Hermione, Ron, and finally Draco all came in behind him and they spread out as the figure slowly turned to face them.

"Called it." Draco whispered as they found themselves facing Professor Quirrell, who looked decidedly steady and confident. "It's always the Defense teacher."

"Oh my, did you actually suspect me Mr. Malfoy?" Quirrell asked with a smirk, not a hint of a stutter.

"Semi-jokingly. You know how it is with the jinx on your job."

"Indeed." Quirrell answered sardonically, his gaze sweeping over the students, holding for a moment on Harry. "I knew that once you heard Dumbledore was gone, you'd come running, but I had guessed you were going to wait till after dinner. So hasty."

Quirrell's gaze drifted over to Malfoy for a moment, and he opened his mouth to say something but before he could, Harry yelled out, "Get him!" and all four started throwing ever jinx they could in rapid-fire. Quirrell seemed slightly surprised, but didn't flinch or hesitate as his wand whipped around, casually deflecting the barrage with contemptuous ease. With a weary sigh, three flashes of crimson light streaked out, instantly dropping Ron and Hermione, and shattering Draco's fledgling shield charm, causing him to scream before Quirrell silenced him with another stunner. Harry meanwhile found himself suddenly and painfully tied up by magically ropes.

"Pathetic." Quirrell turned back to the mirror, satisfied that the interlopers were dealt with. "After how you tore that troll to pieces, I'd expected better of you Potter. But I guess you just got lucky."

"You were behind that troll, weren't you?"

"Of course. I have a...talent for dealing with them. Hit them on the head hard enough, they usually start obeying you."

Harry saw Quirrell's savage grin in the mirror and felt a chill run up his spine. He looked around desperately, trying to figure out something to do. Unfortunately, he was just a first year student against a full on Dark Wizard. _I am an idiot._

"Are you working for yourself, or for Voldemort?"

"I serve the Dark Lord. If I can gain the philosopher's stone and help him regain his full power...I will be rewarded far beyond any of his other servants."

"Then...the Unicorns in the forest, was Voldemort the one drinking their blood?"

"In a manner of speaking. He had to do it through me." Quirrell stepped around the mirror behind it.

"You...wait...what?"

A dark laugh came from Quirrell as he stepped back around to the front, holding his turban in his hands now, showing that his head was bald. "He would like to speak to you, by the way." Quirrell gave Harry an evil smile as he turned back to the mirror, revealing an evil face sticking out the back of his head.

"What...the actual...fuck?"

" _Hah, yes, this is what's become of me. Mere shadow and vapor. I can only have corporeal form when I share someone else's body. Over the past month, Quirrell has helped me grow stronger by drinking Unicorn's blood. But with the stone, I can create a new body for myself, and cleanse Quirrell of the curse he's taken in service to me_."

"Master, I cannot figure out this mirror. Even with the knowledge from Malfoy's mind, I do not understand the trick here. I desire the stone, and it shows me with the stone, but it doesn't show me how to get it!"

" _Hm..._ " Voldemort's hoarse voice hummed, his red eyes looking at Harry. " _Use...the boy..._ "

"Potter." Quirrell snapped his fingers, causing the ropes to vanish. "Come here. Nothing funny, or I kill you where you stand."

Harry rubbed his arms, trying to get the blood flowing in them as he carefully walked up. As he came close he started to feel his scar twinging. "You used Legilimency on Draco..." He stated.

"Yes, he, like you, has made rudimentary attempts at learning Occlumency, but he hasn't made as much progress as you have. Until recently, I could still glean surface thoughts from him, such as his knowledge of this mirror, which helped me know where to look for more knowledge."

"You've read my mind?!" Harry was suddenly worried that Quirrell, and by extension, Voldemort would know about the Chamber.

"Unfortunately, no. I tried during the Sorting Feast, but it caused both of us pain. Whatever that magic is between you and my master, I could not look into your thoughts without it being obvious. Now, stop stalling, and look in the mirror, and tell me what you see."

Harry grumbled as he looked at the mirror. In it he saw himself and Quirrell, but after a moment, his reflection grinned, pulled the stone out of his pocket, winked, and put it back in. Harry felt the weight suddenly appear there, causing his eyes to widen. _I AM A GODDAMN IDIOT!_

"What do you see?!"

"Um, it's...my parents. I have my family back." Harry tried to lie by telling a truth (Draco's Tips on Lying #2), recalling that the first time he'd looked in the mirror that that's what he'd saw.

" _He lies_."

Almost instantly, Quirrell spun and got his hand around Harry's neck, snarling hatefully, but in almost the same instant he recoiled, his hands looking charred as he screeched in pain. Harry also felt intense pain from the touch, but realized it was more severe for Quirrell, acting quickly, Harry jumped and grabbed Quirrell's face, screaming as pain seared through his arms, but within moments Quirrell's body turned to dust.

Panting from the pain, his arms twitching from its echoes, Harry took a couple steps back. "Oh hell...I just killed him..." Suddenly, Harry was glad he'd skipped dinner, because if he hadn't, he was sure he'd be puking right then from the realization. Before he could take much more time to process it though, Quirrell's remains stirred, causing Harry a flare of panic.

A loud screeching wail came from the remains as a ghostly face rose out and flew around the room in a smoking trail before turning and flying straight through Harry, causing him to scream in pain. He tried to use his Occlumency to help block out the pain, but his vision faded to black.

* * *

Author's Note

Hey, sorry for the delay, been hard to get he muse to come back. But here's the second to last chapter. I was going to finish it all this chapter, but I figured that rather than have you all waiting any longer for the whole thing, I'd put up this much. The next chapter shouldn't take too much longer, and it will definitely be the last for this year, though there's also going to be an epilogue. It was so interesting writing this chapter though, with how things have played out differently, there were less clues for Harry to work with, so figuring out a way for him to figure everything out, and to get him through the trapdoor, it was tricky, I hope I did alright. 

**GinsengH** \- you are right that Harry shouldn't be too much of a catalyst in world events, but keep in mind that not everything will turn out as people think. just because something is said does not mean that it will happen, or will happen as people expect. Also, certain characters in this world are manipulators, with plots and schemes who sometimes try to nudge things, Dumbledore is one such player. As for the education thing, I will probably do a Side Story at some point, likely next chapter, where Harry learns that Lucius was very much opposed to it, meaning if Harry really wants that to happen, he'll put it on his own To-Do list, but it might not pan out during the seven years Harry is at Hogwarts. Your complaint is valid, but not everything is at it seems at face value. A lot of things I'm basically throwing out there as Chekhov's guns for later.

Edit: After I posted the chapter, I realized I didn't make the omake, so I whipped it up real quick.


	13. Chapter 13: Final Secrets

Slowly, Harry regained consciousness, and saw the curious gaze of Dumbledore looking over him. They stared at each other for a few moments as Harry's memories slowly brought him back up to speed.

"The Stone?"

"Ah, I wondered what would be your first concern. Safe to say Harry, it is beyond Voldemort's reach. Now and forever."

"For...forever? What happened? I think the mirror gave it to me...didn't it?"

"Yes, but during your fight with Quirrell, the stone shattered in your pocket." Dumbledore gave a heavy sigh, leaning back in his chair as Harry pushed himself up on his infirmary bed into a sitting position. "From what I could tell, the magical resonance between you and Voldemort caused the stone to break when he touched you."

Harry silently considered this for a moment, trying to recall the specific series of events during the fight, but couldn't be certain about anything. From the moment Quirrell first tried to strangle him, it was all a blur of pain. The stone could have shattered and he just didn't notice. "Is...Flamel going to die?"

"My dear friend Flamel has an extensive supply of the Elixir of Life stored in his home, more than enough to set their affairs in order. But yes, Nicholas and his wife will die. But they both believe that it's for the best."

"What? But dying-"

"After almost seven hundred years of life, death will seem more like finally going to sleep, after a very, very long day. After all, to the well organized mind, death is but the next, great adventure!" Dumbledore seemed to hum and smile, looking up at the ceiling for a moment as if in fond remembrance. As such, he didn't see the frown on Harry's face, the look of disagreement at such a statement. Perhaps it was just because he had lived for so few years, but Harry felt that life was too precious to just...let go of it.

"Professor?"

"Yes Harry?"

"Can you tell me more...about the connection between me and Voldemort? Why did Quirrell get hurt just by touching me?"

Dumbledore silently looked out the nearby window next to Harry's bed, seemingly contemplating something for a moment before speaking. "When Voldemort came to kill you that day, your parents both sacrificed their lives to try and stop him. Your mother, in particular, invoked an ancient magic when she died for you. There are magical forces within your blood that protects you from Voldemort. But they can only be restored to full strength as long as you live with your aunt."

"Ah." Harry saw the pieces falling into place, explanations for questions he hadn't realized he was wondering about. "That's why you placed me with her family."

"Yes. As long as you consider her home your home, and stay with her at least a couple weeks each year, the blood wards that protect you will renew, at least until you are 17 years old...or you leave her home with no intention to return. I know you haven't had the best life with them, but please understand that I placed you with them for your own good."

Harry nodded. More and more pieces fell into places, explanations for events in his life. Voldemort was a legitimate threat to his life, and as long as he lived with Petunia, he would be protected. And the event with Quirrell just showed that protection extended beyond Privet Drive. Harry still intended to take steps to make his life with them better, but he had a better appreciation for why he was forced to live with them. Didn't mean he was overly happy with it, however.

"Are you aware of how miserable my life with them has been?"

Dumbledore coughed as he somewhat nervously admitted, "To a degree, yes. I didn't know how bad it really was though until the Sorting."

"The- Oh, you can listen in on the Hat!"

"Yes, and my reaction to seeing what you'd been through was much the same as the Hat's."

Harry gave a questioning look.

"'Oh shite.'"

"Ah." Harry chuckled as he remembered. "That."

Dumbledore chuckled as well for a moment, but the humor quickly faded, bringing on an awkward silence. It would be a moment before Dumbledore broke it.

"In your parent's will, it was specifically forbidden for you to be placed with your relatives."

Harry's eyes widened at this admission, then narrowed accusingly, though he let him continue.

"Using my authority as supreme Mugwump, I chose to override that, to utilize the ancient magics I mentioned to grant you the strongest protection I could manage."

"Under the _assumption_ that Voldemort was still alive." Harry pushed, his eyes twinkling inquisitively as he stared down the most powerful wizard he knew.

"It was... _more_ than an assumption, my young Harry." Dumbledore's eyes also twinkled mischievously. "Though I do not wish to tell you about that just yet."

"To protect my innocence? Please, that matters little compared to my life. Knowledge can save me!"

Dumbledore chuckled as he held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Calm down, perhaps you should have been in Ravenclaw to say that so sincerely, but it is a matter of the darkest magics. I will say that Voldemort pursued immortality above all else, and I had reason to believe that he'd succeeded along one of the darkest paths."

During his studies, Harry had come to understand a bit about wizarding culture regarding telling children anything about dark magics, and figured that trying to pull anything else out of Dumbledore would be an exercise in futility.

"But I was about to offer you Harry, there were others that your parents would have preferred you went to. Now that I understand what your childhood was like, if you wish it, I could contact them and arrange for you to be moved to live with them."

Harry was silent for a moment before raising an eyebrow and saying, "...but?"

"Yes, but, the protection your relatives grant you cannot be understated, I would urge you to stay with them, if only for that."

Harry nodded in understanding, but then looked up, "Where these people friends of my parents?"

"Yes."

"Could...could you help them get in contact me? I'd like to know them."

Dumbledore nodded in agreement, apparently satisfied. He then glances at the clock for a moment before saying, "Now Harry, I'm surprised you haven't noticed yet, but you have a fair few tokens from your admirers." He states, gesturing to a large pile of candy next to Harry's bed, "And I'm sure you wish to see your friends. They have much to tell you, and they will all be relieved to know you're okay. After you've seen them you should rest up, the End-Of-Year Feast is tomorrow, you shouldn't miss it."

With that, Dumbledore left Harry to his thoughts, though that didn't last long. Hermione and Ron were the first to come and visit Harry, though it took some work to convince Madam Pomfrey to allow it. Draco came to visit after them, with Gregory and Vincent in tow. For each group Harry told them about what had happened, which amazed them when he told them about Voldemort's involvement. Draco seemed to pale at hearing this, but he congratulated Harry on his victory nonetheless.

The next day as Harry left the Hospital Wing on the way to the Feast, he ran into Hagrid who seemed very upset that he'd unwittingly told Quirrell how to get past Fluffy, though it was simple to placate him by telling him how Hermione and him had figured it out through basic muggle myths. Voldemort had likely just been wanting to confirm there wasn't any other tricks involved before trying. Once Hagrid had been comforted, he'd in turn gifted Harry with a leather-bound book of photos of his parents. It was a good thing no one was around, because it was a while before Harry could compose himself enough to head on to the feast.

Once in the Great Hall, Harry quickly found a spot at the Slytherin Table where Draco had saved him a seat. Harry was amazing by the blue and silver colors decorating the hall, signifying Ravenclaw's victory for the House Cup, ending Slytherin's House winning streak, but they had won the Quidditch Cup, continuing that streak.

After the Feast came grades, which Harry had been slightly worried about, but had come through fine, passing all his classes with EE's or better. Hermione of course had been the top of the year, with Draco only a couple places behind her. Thanks to the help they had all received from their respective circles, Ron, Neville, Gregory, and Vincent had all passed decently as well.

Soon enough, all the trunks were packed, notes were handed out, and students were on the train heading back to Platform 9 3/4. On the train ride, Harry had spent some time talking with each of the friends he'd made, though about halfway through the ride, each of them had needed to go and talk to someone else, leaving Harry in a compartment alone for a moment.

Taking advantage of the moment, Harry did something he didn't have much time to do over the past week. He pulled out a book from his Mokeskin pouch, one he'd been working on before the incident with the Trapdoor, and just settled in for a good read. But when he cracked it open, he didn't find his normal bookmarker in the book. In fact, it was a note, telling him, in his own handwriting, to "Pull out the stone."

With trembling hands, Harry reached into his Mokeskin pouch, whispering, "Philosopher's Stone."

And in his hand rested a blood red crystalline object.

* * *

Author's Commentary

So, finally got around to finishing this book's proper chapters. Sorry there's no Side Story, couldn't think of anything to throw in. I will be posting an Epilogue later on explaining how Harry got the Stone, but I'd like to pose a challenge for my readers to see if they can figure out the mechanics for what happened. Shouldn't be too hard to piece it together, I've given hints foreshadowing this. But this basically ends Year One of the Choice of Slytherin series. I'd like to go back and finish off my Legend of Zelda fic before I continue this series, but we'll see how my muse plays things out. Also I'm sorry if this ending chapter sorta feels just...there...but it honestly took a lot of effort to make myself pump this out. Writing is hard.


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